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UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 

MEMORIAL 

the  class  of  1901 

founded  by 
HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 
and 
HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://archive.org/details/abrahamlincolninOObryn 


OCTOBER  SIXTEEN,   EIGHTEEN 

HUNDRED  FIFTY-FOUR,   WAS 

A  MEMORABLE   DAY   IN 

PEORIA.      NONE   APPREHENDED 

IT   THEN,   AND  BUT  FEW 

APPRECIATE   IT  NOW — 

SEVENTY  YEARS   AFTER. 


Ahmljam  ffitttrtfln 


m 


fteorta,  SUtttotfi 


by 
1.  (E.  Irynrr 


"3  earn  anil  Ijearu  ffiinrnln 
anu  Souglaa  mljen  a  boy 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


Z/AsCatM 


ONE   HUNDRED  COPIES 

PRIVATELY   PRINTED 

BY 

EDWARD  J.   JACOB, 

PRINTER 

PEORIA,    ILLINOIS 

U.   S.   A. 

OCTOBER   SIXTEEN 

NINETEEN  TWENTY-FOUR 

NOT  FOR   SALE 


Abraham  Htnrnln 


'Jll?  nmvtb  nn  areptr?,  wnr?  no  rrrnun, 

No  arts  tgnnble  marrei  Ijta  iags; 
Ant»  wljpn  in  rUmft  tjtn  mtn  w^nf  town 
Gllje  worlfc,  in  iarknmj,  sang  Ijte  prate?! 

— S.  Patterson  Prowse 

Late  Librarian  of  the  City  of  Peoria 


.v- 


RISE  TO  TH  HlfeHT  #€&  FENERATION 
OF  FREE  All??.  WORTHY  OF  A  FREE  GOV* 
ERNMENT >  •  f  HE  PEOPLE  $  WILL  IS  THE 
ULTIMATE  LAW  FOR  ALL  "" 

Abraham  Lincoln. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Abraham  ©train 


MOITAJI3HH0  A  iO  TH013H  3HT  OT  MM 

•3 J  e  luaoYP^^WI^ilr^QutOMKraowattaM  33jh  so 
a  Nnlft  tfctdffll  tBifflflP5tf«fiar  THHM^a 

;VJJA  JI03  WAJ  3TAMITJU 

b  tun  sun  men!  wmm 
m,  aaug  lita  prata?! 

e  Ctffl  of  Peoria 


a- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


CHAPTER  ONE 

October  16th,  1854,  was  a  memorable  day 
in  Peoria.  None  apprehended  it  then,  and  but 
few  appreciate  it  now — seventy  years  after. 

It  was  the  starting  point  of  the  race  which 
won  for  Abraham  Lincoln  the  Presidency  of 
the  United  States — brought  on  the  War  of  the 
Rebellion — led  to  the  death  of  a  half  million 
men  and  twice  that  number  disabled  by  dis- 
ease and  wounds.  Made  free  men  and  women 
of  four  million  slaves,  and  desolated  almost 
every  home  in  the  land.  Four  years  of  human 
sacrifice  and  suffering.  At  every  fireside  heart- 
strings were  swept  by  the  fingers  of  Death. 
From  a  population  of  thirty-four  million,  a 
million  and  one-half  were  taken. 

The  monument  in  the  Court  House  square 
bears  the  names  of  five  hundred  and  twenty-five 
boys  from  Peoria,  who  died  between  April, 
1861,  and  April,  1865,  and  Peoria  had  then 
less  than  one-tenth  its  present  population.  And 
the  starting  point  of  it  all  was  at  Peoria,  that 
16th  day  of  October,  1854.  As  the  evening 
shadows  gather,  I  wander  through  the  halls  of 
memory  and  behold  a  picture  of  those  earlier 
days.  Peoria — "beautiful  view" — for  such  is 
11 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


the  meaning  of  the  word  in  the  language  of  the 
Pottawattomies — only  a  village — bluffs  covered 
with  oak  and  hickory — undergrowth  of  hazel 
brush  and  wild  blackberry — ravines  in  which 
the  wolf  still  lingered.  At  the  narrows  butter- 
nuts, wild  grapes,  plums,  pecans,  persimmons 
and  pawpaws.  Rope  ferries  at  either  end  of  the 
lake — wild  ducks  floating  upon  the  river's  bos- 
om. Clouds  of  black  birds  darkened  the  skies. 
The  honk  of  the  wild  geese  winging  their  way 
North  or  South  in  endless  file  the  whole  day 
long  foretold  the  season's  change.  Morning  and 
evening  heard  the  drumming  of  partridges,  or 
the  call  of  the  quail  in  back  yards  and  streets. 

Political  times:  the  music  of  bands — of 
drums  and  fife  with  drummers  and  fifers  garbed 
in  colonial  costume — the  "Spirit  of  76."  Cam- 
paign songs — flags  mounted  on  saplings  with 
bunches  of  leaves  at  the  top.  Only  thirty-four 
stars  then.  Floats  with  pretty  girls  in  white 
representing  Columbia  and  the  several  states.  I 
see  them  at  night  upon  the  floor  of  my  home — 
sleeping  upon  improvised  beds  upon  the  floor — 
my  mother  cooking  for  all.  Not  a  completed 
railroad  in  Peoria,  October  16th,  1854.  No 
telegraph — no  sewing  machine — no  telephone 
12 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


— tallow  candles  for  illumination — butter,  eggs 
and  milk  lowered  into  the  cistern  to  keep  fresh. 
And  yet  all  of  the  comforts  and  luxury  of  today 
were  born  of  the  brain  and  brawn  of  that  and 
the  succeeding  generation. 

Amidst  such  scenes  Lincoln  and  Douglas 
first  met  in  debate  in  Peoria,  October  16th, 
1854. 


13 


CHAPTER  TWO 

Drown's  Peoria  City  Record  of  March  4th, 
1854,  gives  the  following  description  of  Peoria 
at  that  date: 

"PEORIA  IN  1854,  though  only  in  her 
35th  year,  we  will  venture  to  say,  is  the  most 
beautiful  City  in  the  West,  its  location  is  not 
surpassed  by  any,  for  the  God  of  Nature  in 
his  wisdom  formed  its  site  so  that  there  never 
was,  nor  is  there  any  occasion  of  expending  a 
thousand  dollars  to  make  every  street  in  the 
whole  City  passible.  Still,  our  "City  Fathers" 
are,  and  have  been  for  a  year  or  two  past,  en- 
deavoring to  improve  upon  what  God,  after  he 
had  made  it  "saw  that  it  was  good;"  but  im- 
provement is  the  order  of  the  day.  A  few 
years  since  and  most  of  our  river  towns  now 
swelling  into  cities,  were  insignificant  hamlets 
with  a  meagre  backwoods  population.  Many 
of  my  readers  will  recall  to  mind,  with  a  smile 
of  satisfied  pride  the  local  and  business  condi- 
tion of  our  TOWN,  when  the  business  was  con- 
fined to  the  barter  of  hazel  nuts  and  eggs,  for 
buttons,  beads,  powder  and  shot.  Miniature 
stores,  based  on  a  capital  of  a  few  hundreds, 
14 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

consisting  mainly  of  a  chest  of  tea,  a  sack  of 
coffee,  a  keg  of  three-picayune  James'  river  to- 
bacco, a  barrel  of  "bald  face,"  and  a  dozen 
butcher  knives.  And  then  again,  the  "country 
folks,"  after  they  had  been  to  "town"  and  in- 
dulged a  little  in  the  "critur,"  about  once  a 
week,  must  have  a  little  more  indulgence  in 
target  demonstrations  at  a  candle  by  night,  or 
at  the  body  of  a  turkey  drawn  with  chalk  on 
an  "oak-puncheon."  after  they  had  got  through 
with  "trading"  and  ready  to  go  home.  Such 
like  amusements  comprised  a  good  part  of  the 
time  and  business  along  our  river  line  of  settle- 
ments, which  are  now  matters  of  memory  only 
and  thrown  far  to  the  rearward  in  the  onward 
march  of  improvement.  Whence  the  timid 
fawn  stood  by  the  margin  of  the  stream  or 
lake,  feeding  on  the  luxuriant  herbage,  or  view- 
ing its  shadow  in  the  limpid  wave;  or  the  yell 
of  the  panther  awoke  the  echoes  of  the  wood — 
the  sonorious  breathing  of  steam  engines,  or  the 
more  thrilling,  loud,  long,  terrifFic,  terrible  whis- 
tle of  a  locomotive  is  heard,  and  thriving  towns 
and  cities  stand  out  in  beauty  along  the  shore, 
doing  a  business  of  countless  thousands  in  mer- 
chandise and  produce.  Speaking  of  a  locomo- 
tive and  its  whistle,  it  is  now  beginning  to  be 
15 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


heard  in  all  our  continent — we  have  heard  its 
clear  shriek  in  this  City  for  a  few  months  past, 
shouting,  "take  care!  take  care!!  the  iron  image 
moves!"  What  is  that  image  like?  Has  it 
breath?  and  what  is  it?  It  is  like  some  won- 
derful thing  seen  in  a  startling  dream,  imagined 
to  be  for  some  great  purpose  inexplicable!  It 
has  breath  and  arms,  hands  and  feet,  and  is  a 
live  metal  with  a  steam  soul — here  now,  and  in 
an  hour  40,  50  or  60  miles  hence,  dragging 
after  it  its  weak  creator,  with  its  bundles  of 
rich  substances;  and  sometimes  it  takes  upon 
its  shoulders  great  palaces  full  of  human  life 
and  plunges  into  rivers  and  lakes  and  across  the 
wide  prairies;  and  wherever  it  goes  it  whistles! 
The  lips  of  a  thousand  human  whistles  in  one 
grand  strain  united  could  not  raise  a  note  half 
so  loud  and  thrilling  as  the  faintest  effort  of 
one  iron  man.  Old  men  when  you  hear  the 
whistle  of  the  iron  man  of  this  day,  do  you 
ever  think  of  the  time  you  whistled  to  "drive 
off  fear,"  or  "drive  dull  cares  away?" — How 
loud  you  could  "sound,"  how  the  woods  would 
ring  and  the  hills  echo  with  the  tunes  that 
"come  natural."  How  pleasant  you  felt  whistl- 
ing. You  never  expected  then  to  hear  a  big 
piece  of  iron  whistle  louder  than  you  could! 
16 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


You  can  hear  it  now.  The  iron  whistle  is  every 
man's  musician — he  is  the  particular  favorite  of 
the  fast  spirit  enterprise,  and  the  children  of 
trade  dance  to  the  melody  of  his  strain,  while 
cold  eyed  speculation  smiles,  and  grim-faced 
avarice  laughs  aloud  when  he  whistles  in  the 
distance." 

(A  fac-simile  photograph  of  this  four  page 
paper  will  be  found  on  the  last  pages  of  this 
book.) 


17 


CHAPTER  THREE 

Although  not  six  years  of  age  I  recall  the 
day  perfectly.  I  was  a  strong  "Douglas  man" 
— how  he  would  appeal  to  a  boy  of  that  per- 
iod. The  "Little  Giant" — the  foremost  states- 
man of  the  day — arrayed  in  frock  coat  and 
black  pants,  wearing  a  high  silk  hat,  white 
shirt  and  collar,  with  black  stock.  He  came  to 
our  western  village  where  such  things  were  un- 
known— a  being  superior  and  supreme  in  my 
regard. 

The  Democratic  Committee  had  appointed  a 
Committee  of  sixty  to  arrange  for  his  reception, 
and  had  passed  the  following  resolution: 

"Resolved:  That  the  Democracy  of  Peoria 
County  who  wish  to  take  part  in  the  public 
reception  of  Judge  Douglas  be  requested  to  meet 
at  the  "Three  Mile  House"  (Potter's),  on  the 
Farmington  road  on  Monday,  the  16th  inst., 
at  9  o'clock  A.  M.  All  who  do  so  are  requested 
to  appear  on  horseback." 

The  Peoria  Republican  of  Oct.  19,  1854 
says — 

"Mr.  Douglas  rode  into  our  city  yesterday  at 
the  head  of  a  triumphal  procession,  seated  in  a 
18 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

carriage  drawn  by  four  beautiful  white  palfreys 
and  preceded  by  a  band  of  music.  Cannon 
boomed  in  welcome  to  the  distinguished  visitor 
and  the  cheers  of  his  friends  resounded  through 
our  quiet  streets.  He  was  waited  upon  by  a 
committee  of  the  faithful  and  escorted  to  the 
place  of  speaking,  and  the  "distinguished  chair- 
man" (Washington  Cockle)  welcomed  him  to 
Peoria  County  in  a  terse  and  eloquent  speech 
in  which  he  seemed  to  assume  that  the  Judge 
was  the  great  man  of  the  age — the  greatest  man 
of  any  age  in  the  past,  and  greater  than  any  man 
that  may  flourish  in  any  age  in  the  future." 

In  strange  contrast  was  the  quiet — undemon- 
strative entry  of  the  tall,  lank,  homely  and  awk- 
ward Lincoln  whose  name  and  fame  was  to  ring 
through  the  ages — Child  of  the  Soil — friend  of 
the  people — the  Emancipator  of  a  race. 

Child-like  in  his  faith — 
God-like  in  his  courage — 
Christ-like   in   his  martyrdom. 

The  events  which  led  up  to  this  meeting  form 
a  fascinating  page  in  the  history  of  our  coun- 
try and  will  deserve  the  attention  of  the  student 
who  wishes  to  familiarize  himself  with  the  de- 
velopment of  free  America  as  it  exists  today. 
19 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


The  immediate  cause  of  the  famous  Lincoln- 
Douglas  debates,  of  which  the  Peoria  meeting 
was  the  forerunner,  was  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
bill  introduced  into  the  United  States  Senate 
in  January,  1854,  by  Judge  Douglas,  which 
became  a  law  May  31st,  1854. 

This  bill  provided  for  the  creation  of  two 
vast  territories  to  be  called  respectively,  Kansas 
and  Nebraska.  The  inhabitants  were  to  be  al- 
lowed to  decide  for  themselves  whether  or  not 
slavery  was  to  be  permitted  within  their  respec- 
tive limits.  The  passage  of  this  bill  created 
sectional  rancor  and  discord.  The  North  saw 
in  the  measure  a  scheme  to  make  slavery  Na- 
tional, and  Southern  statesmen  confirmed  the 
opinion.  Robert  Toombs  of  Georgia,  who  after- 
wards became  a  member  of  the  Confederate  Cab- 
inet, declared  he  would  "yet  live  to  call  the 
roll  of  his  slaves  on  Bunker's  Hill."  Squatters 
(Immigrants)  flocked  to  Kansas  and  Nebraska 
from  North  and  South — the  one  element  firm 
to  prevent  the  extension  of  slavery  into  these 
sections,  the  other  seeking  to  create  new  slave 
territory.  This  question  became  known  as  the 
doctrine  of  "Squatter  Sovereignty." 


20 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

The  Peoria  debate  could  hardly  be  called  a 
prearranged  affair.  A  short  time  before  the 
Peoria  meeting,  Judge  Douglas  had  addressed 
the  crowd  at  the  State  Fair  held  in  Springfield, 
and  the  Whigs  had  arranged  with  Judge  Lyman 
Trumble  to  make  reply  upon  the  day  follow- 
ing, but  be  failed  to  appear,  and  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  called  upon  to  fill  his  place.  The  Demo- 
crats had  arranged  a  series  of  meetings  for  Judge 
Douglas — the  first  to  be  held  at  Peoria,  October 
16th.  So  soon  as  announcement  of  these  meet- 
ings was  made,  the  Whigs  in  Peoria  got  busy 
and  an  invitation  was  sent  to  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
appear  and  make  answer.  This  invitation  was 
signed  by: 

John  Hamlin 
A.  P.  Bartlett 
Lorin  G.  Pratt 
Dr.  Joseph  C.  Frye 
Charles  Ballance 
George  C.  Bestor 
Hugh  W.  Reynolds 
Alexander  McCoy 
John  Dredge 
John  D.  Arnold 
21 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


Jonathan  K.  Cooper 
George  W.  McClellan 
Thomas  Bryant 
John  T.  Lindsay 
John  A.  McCoy 
David  D.  Irons 
Valentine  Dewein 
William  A.  Herron 
Edward  Dickinson 
and  John  King 

(A  facsimile  of  this  invitation  is  given  upon 
another  page.) 


22 


LINCOLN'S  INVITATION  To  PEORIA 


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ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

Mr.  Lincoln  accepted  the  invitation  and  it 
was  afterwards  arranged  that  Mr.  Douglas  was 
to  speak  first — Lincoln  to  follow,  and  Douglas 
to  close.  No  limit  was  set  as  to  time  each  was 
to  occupy. 

The  meeting  had  been  advertised  as  a  Doug- 
las meeting.  A  platform  had  been  erected  upon 
the  South  side  of  the  old  Court  House,  en- 
trance to  which  was  through  a  window  from 
the  office  of  the  Circuit  Clerk.  Judge  Douglas 
commenced  his  speech  at  half  after  two  and  did 
not  conclude  until  after  five  o'clock.  I  now 
quote  from  an  account  given  by  the  late  Dr. 
Robert  Boal  of  Peoria: 

"After  he  concluded,  Mr.  Lincoln  arose  and 
said  he  had  a  proposal  to  make  to  the  audience 
which  was,  that  they  go  home  and  get  their 
suppers,  then  come  back  and  he  would  talk  to 
them.  As  an  additional  inducement,  he  said 
that  Senator  Douglas  had  the  closing  speech,  and 
if  you  would  like  to  see  him  skin  me,  you  had 
better  come  back.  The  people  had  stood  for 
nearly  three  hours  in  front  of  the  steps  of  the 
old  court  house,  from  which  the  speakers  ad- 
dressed them.  They  were  tired  from  standing 
so  long,  but  they  came  back  in  increased  num- 
24 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


ber,  and  with  increased  interest.  At  about  7 
o'clock,  Mr.  Lincoln  slowly  arose,  and,  after 
surveying  the  large  audience,  commenced  his 
speech  by  saying":  'He  thought  he  could  appre- 
ciate an  argument,  and,  at  times,  believed  he 
could  make  one,  but  when  one  denied  the  set- 
tled and  plainest  facts  of  history,  you  could  not 
argue  with  him;  the  only  thing  you  could  do, 
would  be  to  stop  his  mouth  with  a  corn  cob.' 

"I  write  this  as  I  recollect  it,  and  I  believe  I 
have  given  it  substantially  as  he  said  it.  Sena- 
tor Douglas  had  an  appointment  to  speak  at 
Lacon  the  next  day.  The  late  Judge  Silas  Ram- 
sey and  myself  went  to  Peoria  to  hear  the 
speeches  and  to  induce  Mr.  Lincoln  to  go  to 
Lacon  the  next  day  to  answer  Senator  Douglas. 
He  agreed  to  go.  We  took  him  up  in  a  car- 
riage. Senator  Douglas  went  up  in  the  mail 
steamer  to  Chillicothe,  which  connected  with 
the  branch  of  the  Rock  Island,  which  was  only 
finished  to  that  point.  A  number  of  Peorians 
went  up  on  the  boat  and  took  the  train  to 
Sparland.  Among  them  was  the  late  Judge 
Powell  of  Peoria.  In  the  conversation  which 
took  place  between  the  senator  and  the  judge, 
the  latter  told  the  senator  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
25 


B.  C.  BRYNER 
Through  whose  efforts  this  book  was  made  possible. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


on  the  way  up  to  Lacon  to  reply  to  him.  Mr. 
Douglas  was  surprised  to  hear  it,  but  said  little 
in  reply.  He  did  not  expect  to  meet  Mr.  Lin- 
coln. When  we  arrived  about  1  o'clock  at  Lacon, 
we  found  Senator  Douglas  at  the  hotel.  Mr. 
Lincoln  went  in  to  see  him,  and,  after  a  few 
minutes,  came  out  and  told  his  friends  that  Mr. 
Douglas  said  he  was  sick  and  worn  out,  and 
would  not  speak.  Mr.  Lincoln  with  his  usual 
magnanimity,  said  he  would  not  take  advantage 
of  him  and  would  make  no  speech.  The  people 
were  greatly  disappointed.  Nearly  half  the  pop- 
ulation in  the  county  were  in  town  to  hear  the 
distinguished  men.  An  agreement  was  made 
between  Senator  Douglas  and  Mr.  Lincoln  that 
both  would  go  home  and  stop  their  meetings. 
Mr.  Lincoln  left  soon  after  the  arrangement  was 
made.  Senator  Douglas  remained  until  the  next 
day,  and  left  ostensibly  for  Chicago.  I  was 
going  to  Chicago  and  was  with  him  in  the 
omnibus.  Between  Lacon  and  Sparland  a  car- 
riage met  us  and  stopped  the  omnibus.  Senator 
Douglas  got  out  of  it,  and  took  his  satchel  with 
him.  I  said  to  him,  'I  thought  you  intended  to 
go  to  Chicago?'  'Yes,'  he  said,  'but  I  will  catch 
the  train  at  Henry.'  Instead  of  taking  the 
27 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

train  at  Henry,  he  went  to  Princeton,  in  Bureau 
county,  and  made  a  speech  that  day  which 
Owen  Lovejoy  answered.  In  so  doing,  he  vio- 
lated the  agreement  made  with  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  made  a  remarkably  rapid  recovery  from 
his  illness." 


28 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

SPEECH    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    AT 

PEORIA,    ILL.,    (OCT.    16,    1854) 

IN     REPLY     TO     SENATOR 

STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS 

I  insist  that  if  there  is  anything  which  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  whole  people  never  to  intrust  to 
any  hands  but  their  own,  that  thing  is  the 
preservation  and  perpetuity  of  their  own  liber- 
ties and  institutions.  And  if  they  shall  think, 
as  I  do,  that  the  extension  of  slavery  endangers 
them  more  than  any  or  all  other  causes,  how 
recreant  to  themselves  if  they  submit  the  ques- 
tion, and  with  it  the  fate  of  their  country,  to 
a  mere  handful  of  men  bent  only  to  self-inter- 
est. If  this  question  of  slavery  extension  were 
an  insignificant  one — one  having  no  power  to 
do  harm — it  might  be  shuffled  aside  in  this 
way;  and  being,  as  it  is,  the  great  Behemoth 
of  danger,  shall  the  strong  grip  of  the  nation 
be  loosened  upon  him,  to  intrust  him  to  the 
hands  of  such  feeble  keepers? 

But  Nebraska  is  urged  as  a  great  Union-sav- 
ing  measure.      Well,    I   too   go   for   saving   the 
Union.     Much  as  I  hate  slavery,  I  would  con- 
sent to  the  extension  of  it  rather  than  see  the 
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ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

Union  dissolved,  just  as  I  would  consent  to  any- 
great  evil  to  avoid  a  greater  one.  But  when  I 
go  to  Union-saving,  I  must  believe,  at  least, 
that  the  means  I  employ  have  some  adaptation 
to  the  end.  To  my  mind,  Nebraska  has  no 
such  adaptation. 

It  hath  no  relish  of  salvation  in  it.  It  is 
an  aggravation,  rather,  of  the  only  one  thing 
which  ever  endangers  the  Union.  When  it 
came  upon  us,  all  was  peace  and  quiet.  The 
nation  was  looking  to  the  forming  of  new 
bonds  of  union,  and  a  long  course  of  peace  and 
prosperity  seemed  to  lie  before  us.  In  the  whole 
range  of  possibility,  there  scarcely  appears  to  me 
to  have  been  anything  out  of  which  the  slavery 
agitation  could  have  been  revived,  except  the 
very  project  of  repealing  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise. Every  inch  of  territory  we  owned 
already  had  a  definite  settlement  of  the  slavery 
question,  by  which  all  parties  were  pledged  to 
abide.  Indeed,  there  was  no  uninhabited  coun- 
try on  the  continent  which  we  could  acquire, 
if  we  except  some  extreme  northern  regions 
which  are  wholly  out  of  the  question. 

In  this  state  of  affairs  the  Genius  of  Discord 
himself    could    scarcely    have    invented    a    way 
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ABRAHAM    LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


of  again  setting  us  by  the  ears  but  by  turning 
back  and  destroying  the  peace  measures  of  the 
past.  The  counsels  of  that  Genius  seem  to 
have  prevailed.  The  Missouri  Compromise 
was  repealed;  and  here  we  are  in  the  midst  of  a 
new  slavery  agitation,  such,  I  think,  as  we  have 
never  seen  before.  Who  is  responsible  for  this? 
Is  it  those  who  resist  the  measure,  or  those  who 
causelessly  brought  it  forward  and  pressed  it 
through,  having  reason  to  know,  and  in  fact 
knowing,  it  must  and  would  be  so  resisted?  It 
could  not  but  be  expected  by  its  author  that  it 
would  be  looked  upon  as  a  measure  for  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery,  aggravated  by  a  gross  breach 
of  faith. 

Argue  as  you  will  and  long  as  you  will,  this 
is  the  naked  front  and  aspect  of  the  measure. 
And  in  this  aspect  it  could  not  but  produce 
agitation.  Slavery  is  founded  in  the  selfishness 
of  man's  nature — opposition  to  it  in  his  love  of 
justice.  These  principles  are  an  eternal  antag- 
onism, and  when  brought  into  collision  so 
fiercely  as  slavery  extension  brings  them,  shocks 
and  throes  and  convulsions  must  ceaselessly  fol- 
low. Repeal  the  Missouri  Compromise,  repeal 
all  compromises,  repeal  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
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ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


pendence,  repeal  all  past  history,  you  still  can- 
not repeal  human  nature.  It  still  will  be  the 
abundance  of  man's  heart  that  slavery  exten- 
sion is  wrong,  and  out  of  the  abundance  of 
his  heart  his  mouth  will  continue  to  speak. 
The  structure,  too,  of  the  Nebraska  bill  is  very 
peculiar.  The  people  are  to  decide  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery  for  themselves;  but  when  they 
are  to  decide,  or  how  they  are  to  decide,  or 
whether,  when  the  question  is  once  decided,  it 
is  to  remain  so  or  is  to  be  subject  to  an  indefi- 
nite succession  of  new  trials,  the  law  does  not 
say.  Is  it  to  be  decided  by  the  first  dozen  set- 
tlers who  arrive  there,  or  is  it  to  await  the  ar- 
rival of  a  hundred?  Is  it  to  be  decided  by  a 
vote  of  the  people  or  a  vote  of  the  legislature, 
or,  indeed,  by  a  vote  of  any  sort?  To  these 
questions  the  law  gives  no  answer.  There  is  a 
mystery  about  this;  for  when  a  member  pro- 
posed to  give  the  legislature  express  authority 
to  exclude  slavery,  it  was  hooted  down  by  the 
friends  of  the  bill.  This  fact  is  worth  remem- 
bering. Some  Yankees  in  the  East  are  sending 
emigrants  to  Nebraska  to  exclude  slavery  from 
it;  and,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  they  expect  the 
quesion  to  be  decided  by  voting  in  some  way  or 
32 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


other.  But  the  Missourians  are  awake,  too. 
They  are  within  a  stone's-throw  of  the  contest- 
ed ground.  They  hold  meetings  and  pass  reso- 
lutions, in  which  not  the  slightest  allusion  to 
voting  is  made.  They  resolve  that  slavery  al- 
ready exists  in  the  Territory;  that  more  shall 
go  there;  that  they,  remaining  in  Missouri,  will 
protect  it,  and  that  Abolitionists  shall  be  hung 
or  driven  away.  Through  all  this  bowie- 
knives  and  six  shooters  are  seen  plainly  enough, 
but  never  a  glimpse  of  the  ballot-box. 

And,  really,  what  is  the  result  of  all  this? 
Each  party  within  having  numerous  and  de- 
termined backers  without,  is  it  not  probable 
that  the  contest  will  come  to  blows  and  blood- 
shed? Could  there  be  a  more  apt  invention  to 
bring  about  collision  and  the  violence  on  the 
slavery  question  than  this  Nebraska  project  is? 
I  do  not  charge  or  believe  that  such  was  intend- 
ed by  Congress;  but  if  they  had  literally  formed 
a  ring  and  placed  champions  within  it  to  fight 
out  the  controversy,  the  fight  could  be  no  more 
likely  to  come  off  than  it  is.  And  if  this  fight 
should  begin,  is  it  likely  to  take  a  very  peaceful 
Union-saving  turn?  Will  not  the  first  drop  of 
blood  so  shed  be  the  real  knell  of  the  Union? 
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ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


The  Missouri  Compromise  ought  to  be  re- 
stored. For  the  sake  of  the  Union,  it  ought  to 
be  restored.  We  ought  to  elect  a  House  of 
Representatives  which  will  vote  its  restoration. 
If  by  any  means  we  omit  to  do  this,  what  fol- 
lows? Slavery  may  or  may  not  be  established 
in  Nebraska.  But  whether  it  be  or  not,  we 
shall  have  repudiated — discarded  from  the  coun- 
cils of  the  nation — the  spirit  of  compromise; 
for  who,  after  this,  will  ever  trust  in  a  national 
compromise?  The  spirit  of  mutual  concession 
— that  sipirit  which  first  gave  us  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  which  has  thrice  saved  the  Union — 
we  shall  have  strangled  and  cast  from  us  for- 
ever. And  what  shall  we  have  in  lieu  of  it? 
The  South  flushed  with  triumph  and  tempted 
to  excess;  the  North,  betrayed  as  they  believe, 
brooding  on  wrong  and  burning  for  revenge. 
One  side  will  provoke,  the  other  resent.  The 
one  will  taunt,  the  other  defy;  one  aggresses, 
the  other  retaliates.  Already  a  few  in  the  North 
defy  all  constitutional  restraints,  resist  the  exe- 
cution of  the  fugitive-slave  law,  and  even 
menace  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  States 
where  it  exists.  Already  a  few  in  the  South 
claim  the  constitutional  right  to  take  and  to 
34 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


hold  slaves  in  the  free  States — demand  the  re- 
vival of  the  slave-trade — and  demand  a  treaty 
with  Great  Britain  by  which  fugitive  slaves  may 
be  reclaimed  from  Canada.  As  yet  they  are 
but  few  on  either  side.  It  is  a  grave  question 
for  lovers  of  the  Union,  whether  the  final  de- 
struction of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  with 
it  the  spirit  of  all  compromise,  will  or  will  not 
embolden  and  embitter  each  of  these,  and  fatal- 
ly increase  the  number  of  both. 

But  restore  the  compromise,  and  what  then? 
We  thereby  restore  the  national  faith,  the  na- 
tional confidence,  the  national  feeling  of  broth- 
erhood. We  thereby  reinstate  the  spirit  of  con- 
cession and  compromise,  that  spirit  which  has 
never  failed  us  in  past  perils,  and  which  may  be 
safely  trusted  for  all  the  future.  The  South 
ought  to  join  in  doing  this.  The  peace  of  the 
nation  is  as  dear  to  them  as  to  us.  In  memor- 
ies of  the  past  and  hopes  of  the  future,  they 
share  as  largely  as  we.  It  would  be  on  their 
part  a  great  act — great  in  its  spirit,  and  great 
in  its  effects.  It  would  be  worth  to  the  nation 
a  hundred  year's  purchase  of  peace  and  prosper- 
ity. And  what  of  sacrifice  would  they  make? 
They  only  surrender  to  us  what  they  gave  us 
35 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

for  a  consideration  long,  long  ago;  what  they 
have  not  now  asked  for,  struggled  or  cared  for; 
what  has  been  thrust  upon  them,  not  less  to 
their  astonishment  than  to  ours. 

But  it  is  said  we  cannot  restore  it;  that 
though  we  elect  every  member  of  the  lower 
House,  the  Senate  is  still  against  us.  It  is  quite 
true  that  of  the  senators  who  passed  the  Ne- 
braska bill,  a  majority  of  the  whole  Senate  will 
retain  their  seats  in  spite  of  the  elections  of  this 
and  the  next  year.  But  if  at  these  elections 
their  several  constituencies  shall  clearly  express 
their  will  against  Nebraska,  will  these  senators 
disregard  their  will?  Will  they  neither  obey 
nor  make  room  for  those  who  will? 

But  even  if  we  fail  to  technically  restore  the 
compromise,  it  is  still  a  great  point  to  carry  a 
popular  vote  in  favor  of  the  restoration.  The 
moral  weight  of  such  a  vote  cannot  be  esti- 
mated too  highly.  The  authors  of  Nebraska  are 
not  at  all  satisfied  with  the  destruction  of  the 
compromise — an  indorsement  of  this  principle 
they  proclaim  to  be  the  great  object.  With 
them,  Nebraska  alone  is  a  small  matter — to  es- 
tablish a  principle  for  future  use  is  what  they 
particularly  desire. 

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ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


The  future  use  is  to  be  the  planting  of  slavery 
wherever  in  the  wide  world  local  and  unor- 
ganized opposition  cannot  prevent  it.  Now,  if 
you  wish  to  give  them  this  indorsement,  if  you 
wish  to  establish  this  principle,  do  so.  I  shall 
regret  it,  but  it  is  your  right.  On  the  contrary, 
if  you  are  opposed  to  the  principle, — intend  to 
give  it  no  such  indorsement, — let  no  wheedling, 
no  sophistry,  divert  you  from  throwing  a  direct 
vote  against  it. 

Some  men,  mostly  Whigs,  who  condemn  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  nevertheless 
hesitate  to  go  for  its  restoration,  lest  they  be 
thrown  in  company  with  the  Abolitionists. 
Will  they  allow  me,  as  an  old  Whig,  to  tell 
them,  good-humoredly,  that  I  think  this  is  very 
silly?  Stand  with  anybody  that  stands  right. 
Stand  with  him  while  he  is  right,  and  part  with 
him  when  he  goes  wrong.  Stand  with  the  Abo- 
litionist in  restoring  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
and  stand  against  him  when  he  attempts  to 
repeal  the  fugitive-slave  law.  In  the  latter  case 
you  stand  with  the  Southern  disunionist.  What 
of  that?  You  are  still  right.  In  both  cases  you 
are  right.  In  both  cases  you  expose  the  danger- 
ous extremes.  In  both  you  stand  on  middle 
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ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

ground,  and  hold  the  ship  level  and  steady.  In 
both  you  are  national,  and  nothing  less  than 
national.  This  is  the  good  old  Whig  ground. 
To  desert  such  ground  because  of  any  company, 
is  to  be  less  than  a  Whig — less  than  a  man — 
less  than  an  American. 

I  particularly  object  to  the  new  position 
which  the  avowed  principle  of  this  Nebraska 
law  gives  to  slavery  in  the  body  politic.  I  ob- 
ject to  it  because  it  assumes  that  there  can  be 
moral  right  in  the  enslaving  of  one  man  by 
another.  I  object  to  it  as  a  dangerous  dalliance 
for  a  free  people — a  sad  evidence  that,  feeling 
prosperity,  we  forget  right;  that  liberty,  as  a 
principle,  we  have  ceased  to  revere.  I  object 
to  it  because  the  fathers  of  the  republic  eschewed 
and  rejected  it.  The  argument  of  "necessity" 
was  the  only  argument  they  ever  admitted  in 
favor  of  slavery;  and  so  far,  and  so  far  only,  as 
it  carried  them  did  they  ever  go.  They  found 
the  institution  existing  among  us,  which  they 
could  not  help,  and  they  cast  blame  upon  the 
British  king  for  having  permitted  its  introduc- 
tion. Before  the  Constitution  they  prohibited 
its  introduction  into  the  Northwestern  Terri- 
tory, the  only  country  we  owned  then  free  from 
38 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


it.  At  the  framing  and  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution, they  forbore  to  so  much  as  mention 
the  word  "slave"  or  "slavery"  in  the  whole 
instrument.  In  the  provision  for  the  recovery 
of  fugitives,  the  slave  is  spoken  of  as  a  "per- 
son held  to  serve  or  labor."  In  that  prohibiting 
the  abolition  of  the  African  slave-trade  for 
twenty  years,  that  trade  is  spoken  of  as  "the 
migration  or  importation  of  such  persons  as 
any  of  the  States  now  existing  shall  think  prop- 
er to  admit,"  etc.  These  are  the  only  provisions 
alluding  to  slavery.  Thus  the  thing  is  hid 
away  in  the  Constitution,  just  as  an  afflicted 
man  hides  away  a  wen  or  cancer  which  he  does 
not  cut  out  at  once,  lest  he  bleed  to  death, — 
with  the  promise,  nevertheless,  that  the  cutting 
may  begin  at  a  certain  time.  Less  than  this 
our  fathers  could  not  do,  and  more  they  would 
not  do.  Necessity  drove  them  so  far,  and 
further  they  would  not  go.  But  this  is  not  all. 
The  earliest  Congress  under  the  Constitution 
took  the  same  view  of  slavery.  They  hedged 
and  hemmed  it  in  to  the  narrowest  limits  of 
necessity. 

In   1794  they  prohibited  an  outgoing  slave- 
trade — that   is,    the   taking  of   slaves  from   the 
39 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

United  States  to  sell.  In  1798  they  prohibited 
the  bringing  of  slaves  from  Africa  into  the  Mis- 
sissippi Territory,  this  Territory  then  compris- 
ing what  are  now  the  States  of  Mississippi  and 
Alabama.  This  was  ten  years  before  they  had 
the  authority  to  do  the  same  thing  as  to  the 
States  existing  at  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. In  1800  they  prohibited  American  citi- 
zens from  trading  in  slaves  between  foreign 
countries,  as,  for  instance  from  Africa  to  Brazil. 
In  1803  they  passed  a  law  in  aid  of  one  or  two 
slave-State  laws,  in  restraint  of  the  internal 
slave-trade.  In  1807,  in  apparent  hot  haste, 
they  passed  the  law  nearly  a  year  in  advance, — 
to  take  effect  the  first  day  of  1808,  the  very  first 
day  the  Constitution  would  permit, — prohibit- 
ing the  African  slave-trade  by  heavy  pecuniary 
and  corporal  penalties.  In  1820,  finding  these 
provisions  ineffectual,  they  declared  the  slave- 
trade  piracy,  and  annexed  to  it  the  extreme  pen- 
alty of  death.  While  all  this  was  passing  in  the 
General  Government,  five  or  six  of  the  original 
slave  States  had  adopted  systems  of  gradual 
emancipation,  by  which  the  institution  was 
rapidly  becoming  extinct  within  their  limits. 
Thus  we  see  that  the  plain,  unmistakable  spirit 
40 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


of  that  age  toward  slavery  was  hostility  to  the 
principle  and  toleration  only  by  necessity. 

But  now  it  is  to  be  transformed  into  a 
"sacred  right."  Nebraska  brings  it  forth,  places 
it  on  the  highroad  to  extension  and  perpetuity, 
and  with  a  pat  on  its  back  says  to  it,  "Go,  and 
God  speed  you."  Henceforth  it  is  to  be  the 
chief  jewel  of  the  nation — the  very  figurehead 
of  the  ship  of  state.  Little  by  little,  but  steadily 
as  man's  march  to  the  grave,  we  have  been  giv- 
ing up  the  old  for  the  new  faith.  Near  eighty 
years  ago  we  began  by  declaring  that  all  men  are 
created  equal;  but  now  from  that  beginning 
we  have  run  down  to  the  other  declaration,  that 
for  some  men  to  enslave  others  is  a  "sacred 
right  of  self-government."  These  principles 
cannot  stand  together.  They  are  as  opposite  as 
God  and  Mammon;  and  whoever  holds  to  the 
one  must  despise  the  other.  When  Pettit,  in 
connection  with  his  support  of  the  Nebraska 
bill,  called  the  Declaration  of  Independence  "a 
self-evident  lie,"  he  only  did  what  consistency 
and  candor  require  all  other  Nebraska  men  to 
do.  Of  the  forty-odd  Nebraska  senators  who 
sat  present  and  heard  him,  no  one  rebuked  him. 
Nor  am  I  apprised  that  any  Nebraska  news- 
41 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


paper,  or  any  Nebraska  orator,  in  the  whole  na- 
tion has  ever  yet  rebuked  him.  If  this  had  been 
said  among  Marion's  men,  Southerners  though 
they  were,  what  would  have  become  of  the  man 
who  said  it?  If  this  had  been  said  to  the  men 
who  captured  Andre,  the  man  who  said  it  would 
probably  have  been  hung  sooner  than  Andre 
was.  If  it  had  been  said  in  old  Independence 
Hall  seventy-eight  years  ago,  the  very  doorkeep- 
er would  have  throttled  the  man  and  thrust  him 
into  the  street.  Let  no  one  be  deceived.  The 
spirit  of  seventy-six  and  the  spirit  of  Nebraska 
are  utter  antagonisms;  and  the  former  is  being 
rapidly  displaced  by  the  latter. 

Fellow-countrymen,  Americans,  South  as 
well  as  North,  shall  we  make  no  effort  to  ar- 
rest this?  Already  the  liberty  party  throughout 
the  world  express  the  apprehension  "that  the 
one  retrograde  institution  in  America  is  un- 
dermining the  principles  of  progress,  and  fatal- 
ly violating  the  noblest  political  system  the 
world  ever  saw."  This  is  not  the  taunt  of 
enemies,  but  the  warning  of  friends.  Is  it  quite 
safe  to  disregard  it — to  despise  it?  Is  there  no 
danger  to  liberty  itself  in  discarding  the  earliest 
practice  and  first  precept  of  our  ancient  faith? 
42 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


In  our  greedy  chase  to  make  profit  of  the  negro, 
let  us  beware  lest  we  "cancel  and  tear  in  pieces" 
even  the  white  man's  charter  of  freedom. 

Our  republican  robe  is  soiled  and  trailed  in 
the  dust.  Let  us  rcpurify  it.  Let  us  turn  and 
wash  it  white  in  the  spirit,  if  not  the  blood, 
of  the  Revolution.  Let  us  turn  slavery  from  its 
claims  of  "moral  right"  back  upon  its  existing 
legal  right  and  its  arguments  of  "necessity." 
Let  us  return  it  to  the  position  our  fathers  gave 
it,  and  there  let  it  rest  in  peace.  Let  us  readopt 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  with  it 
the  practices  and  policy  which  harmonize  with 
it.  Let  North  and  South — let  all  Americans — 
let  all  lovers  of  liberty  everywhere  join  in  the 
great  and  good  work.  If  we  do  this,  we  shall 
not  only  have  saved  the  Union,  but  we  shall 
have  so  saved  it  as  to  make  and  to  keep  it  for- 
ever worthy  of  the  saving.  We  shall  have  so 
saved  it  that  the  succeeding  millions  of  free 
happy  people,  the  world  over,  shall  rise  up  and 
call  us  blessed  to  the  latest  generations. 

Ac  Springfield,  twelve  days  ago,  where  I  had 
spoken  substantially  as  I  have  here,  Judge  Doug- 
las replied  to  me;   and  as  he  is  to  reply  to  me 
here,  I  shall  attempt  to  anticipate  him  by  notic- 
43 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


ing  some  of  the  points  he  made  there.  He  com- 
menced by  stating  I  had  assumed  all  the  way 
through  that  the  principle  of  the  Nebraska  bill 
would  have  the  effect  of  extending  slavery.  He 
denied  that  this  was  intended,  or  that  this  ef- 
fect would  follow. 

I  will  not  reopen  the  argument  upon  this 
point.  That  such  was  the  intention  the  world 
believed  at  the  start,  and  will  continue  to  be- 
lieve. This  was  the  countenance  of  the  thing, 
and  both  friends  and  enemies  instantly  recog- 
nized it  as  such.  That  countenance  cannot  now 
be  changed  by  argument.  You  can  as  easily 
argue  the  color  out  of  the  negro's  skin.  Like 
the  ''bloody  hand,"  you  may  wash  it  and  wash 
it,  the  red  witness  of  guilt  still  sticks  and  stares 
horribly  at  you. 

Next  he  says  that  congressional  intervention 
never  prevented  slavery  anywhere;  that  it  did 
not  prevent  it  in  the  Northwestern  Territory, 
nor  in  Illinois;  that,  in  fact,  Illinois  came  into 
the  Union  as  a  slave  State;  that  the  principle  of 
the  Nebraska  bill  expelled  it  from  Illinois,  from 
several  old  States,  from  everywhere. 

Now    this    is    more    quibbing    all    the    way 
through.     If  the  ordinance  of  '87  did  not  keep 
44 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


slavery  out  of  the  Northwest  Territory,  how 
happens  it  that  the  northwest  shore  of  the  Ohio 
River  is  entirely  free  from  it,  while  the  south- 
east shore,  less  than  a  mile  distant,  along  nearly 
the  whole  length  of  the  river,  is  entirely  cov- 
ered with  it? 

If  that  ordinance  did  not  keep  it  out  of  Illi- 
nois, what  was  it  that  made  the  difference  be- 
tween Illinois  and  Missouri?  They  lie  side  by 
side,  the  Mississippi  River  only  dividing  them 
while  their  early  settlements  were  within  the 
same  latitude.  Between  1810  and  1820,  the 
number  of  slaves  in  Missouri  increased  7211, 
while  in  Illinois  in  the  same  ten  years  they  de- 
creased 51.  This  appears  by  the  census  returns. 
During  nearly  all  of  that  ten  years  both  were 
Territories,  not  States.  During  this  time  the 
ordinance  forbade  slavery  to  go  into  Illinois, 
and  nothing  forbade  it  to  go  into  Missouri. 
It  did  go  into  Missouri,  and  did  not  go  into 
Illinois.  That  is  the  fact.  Can  any  one  doubt 
as  to  the  reason  of  it?  But  he  says  Illinois 
came  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State.  Silence, 
perhaps,  would  be  the  best  answer  to  this  flat 
contradiction  of  the  known  history  of  the 
country.  What  are  the  facts  upon  which  this 
45 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


bold  assertion  is  based?  When  we  first  acquired 
the  country,  as  far  back  as  1787,  there  were 
some  slaves  within  it  held  by  the  French  inhab- 
itants of  Kaskaskia.  The  territorial  legislation 
admitted  a  few  negroes  from  the  slave  States 
as  indentured  servants.  One  year  after  the 
adoption  of  the  first  State  constitution,  the 
whole  number  of  them  was — what  do  you 
think?  Just  one  hundred  and  seventeen,  while 
the  aggregate  free  population  was  55,094, — 
about  four  hundred  and  seventy  to  one.  Upon 
this  state  of  facts  the  people  framed  their  con- 
stitution prohibiting  the  further  introduction  of 
slavery,  with  a  sort  of  guarantee  to  the  owners 
of  the  few  indentured  servants,  giving  freedom 
to  their  children  to  be  born  thereafter,  and 
making  no  mention  whatever  of  any  supposed 
slave  for  life.  Out  of  this  small  matter  the 
judge  manufactures  his  argument  that  Illinois 
came  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State.  Let  the 
facts  be  the  answer  to  the  argument. 

The  principles  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  he  says, 
expelled  slavery  from  Illinois.  The  principle 
of  that  bill  first  planted  it  here — that  is,  it 
first  came  because  there  was  no  law  to  prevent 
it,  first  came  before  we  owned  the  country;  and 
46 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


finding  it  here,  and  having  the  ordinance  of 
'87  to  prevent  its  increasing,  our  people  strug- 
gled along,  and  finally  got  rid  of  it  as  best  they 
could. 

But  the  principle  of  the  Nebraska  bill  abolish- 
ed slavery  in  several  of  the  old  States.  Well, 
it  is  true  that  several  of  the  old  States,  in  the 
last  quarter  of  the  last  century,  did  adopt  sys- 
tems of  gradual  emancipation  by  which  the  in- 
stitution has  finally  become  extinct  within  their 
limits;  but  it  may  or  may  not  be  true  that  the 
principle  of  the  Nebraska  bill  was  the  cause  that 
led  to  the  adoption  of  these  measures.  It  is 
now  more  than  fifty  years  since  the  last  of  these 
States  adopted  its  sysem  of  emancipation. 

If  the  Nebraska  bill  is  the  real  author  of  the 
benevolent  works,  it  is  rather  deplorable  that 
it  has  for  so  long  a  time  ceased  working  alto- 
gether. Is  there  not  some  reason  to  suspect  that 
it  was  the  principle  of  the  Revolution,  and  not 
the  principle  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  that  led  to 
emancipation  in  these  old  States?  Leave  it  to 
the  people  of  these  old  emancipating  States,  and 
I  am  quite  certain  they  will  decide  that  neither 
that  nor  any  other  good  thing  ever  did  or  ever 
will  come  of  the  Nebraska  bill. 
47 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

In  the  course  of  my  argument,  Judge  Doug- 
las interrupted  me  to  say  that  the  principle  of 
the  Nebraska  bill  was  very  old;  that  it  origi- 
nated when  God  made  man,  and  placed  good 
and  evil  before  him,  allowing  him  to  choose 
for  himself,  being  responsible  for  the  choice  he 
should  make.  At  the  time  I  thought  this  was 
merely  playful,  and  I  answered  it  accordingly. 
But  in  his  reply  to  me  he  renewed  it  as  a  ser- 
ious argument.  In  seriousness,  then,  the  facts 
of  this  proposition  are  not  true  as  stated.  God 
did  not  place  good  and  evil  before  man,  telling 
him  to  make  his  choice.  On  the  contrary,  he 
did  tell  him  there  was  one  tree  of  the  fruit  of 
which  he  should  not  eat,  upon  pain  of  certain 
death.  I  should  scarcely  wish  so  strong  a  pro- 
hibition against  slavery  in  Nebraska. 

But  this  argument  strikes  me  as  not  a  little 
remarkable  in  another  particular — in  its  strong 
resemblance  to  the  old  argument  for  the  "divine 
right  of  kings."  By  the  latter,  the  king  is  to 
do  just  as  he  pleases  with  his  white  subjects, 
being  responsible  to  God  alone.  By  the  former, 
the  white  man  is  to  do  just  as  he  pleases  with 
his  black  slaves,  being  responsible  to  God  alone. 
The  two  things  are  precisely  alike,  and  it  is  but 
48 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

natural  that  they  should  find  similar  arguments 
to  sustain  them. 

I  had  argued  that  the  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  self-government,  as  contended  for, 
would  require  the  revival  of  the  African  slave- 
trade:  that  no  argument  could  be  made  in  favor 
of  a  man's  right  to  take  slaves  to  Nebraska, 
which  could  not  be  equally  well  made  in  favor 
of  his  right  to  bring  them  from  the  coast  of 
Africa.  The  judge  replied  that  the  Constitution 
requires  the  suppression  of  the  foreign  slave- 
trade,  but  does  not  require  the  prohibition  of 
slavery  in  the  Territories.  That  is  a  mistake  in 
point  of  fact.  The  Constitution  does  not  re- 
quire the  action  of  Congress  in  either  case,  and 
it  does  authorize  it  in  both.  And  so  there  is 
still  no  difference  between  the  cases. 

In  regard  to  what  I  have  said  of  the  advantage 
the  slave  States  have  over  the  free  in  the  matter 
of  representation,  the  judge  replied  that  we  in 
the  free  States  count  five  free  negroes  as  five 
white  people,  while  in  the  slave  States  they 
count  five  slaves  as  three  whites  only;  and  that 
the  advantage,  at  last,  was  on  the  side  of  the 
free   States. 

49 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

Now,  in  the  slave  States  they  count  free 
negroes  just  as  we  do;  and  it  so  happens  that 
besides  their  slaves,  they  have  as  many  free 
negroes  as  we  have,  and  thirty  thousand  over. 
Thus,  their  free  negroes  more  than  balance  ours; 
and  their  advantage  over  us,  in  consequence  of 
their  slaves,  still  remains  as  I  stated  it. 

In  reply  to  my  argument  that  the  compromise 
measure  of  1850  were  a  system  of  equivalents, 
and  that  the  provisions  of  no  one  of  them  could 
fairly  be  carried  to  other  subjects  without  its 
corresponding  equivalent  being  carried  with  it, 
the  judge  denied  outright  that  these  measures 
had  any  connection  with  or  dependence  upon 
each  other.  This  is  mere  desperation.  If  they 
had  no  connection,  why  are  they  always  spoken 
of  in  connection?  Why  has  he  so  spoken  of 
them  a  thousand  times?  Why  has  he  con- 
stantly called  them  a  series  of  measures?  Why 
does  everybody  call  them  a  compromise?  Why 
was  California  kept  out  of  the  Union  six  or 
seven  months,  if  it  was  not  because  of  its  con- 
nection with  the  other  measures?  Webster's 
leading  definition  of  the  verb  "to  compromise" 
is  "to  adjust  and  settle  a  difference,  by  mutual 
agreement,  with  concessions  of  claims  by  the 
50 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

parties."      This   conveys   precisely   the  popular 
understanding  of  the   word   "compromise." 

We  knew,  before  the  judge  told  us,  that  these 
measures  passed  separately,  and  in  distinct  bills, 
and  that  no  two  of  them  were  passed  by  the 
votes  of  precisely  the  same  members.  But  we 
also  know,  and  so  does  he  know,  that  no  one 
of  them  could  have  passed  both  branches  of 
Congress  but  for  the  understanding  that  the 
others  were  to  pass  also.  Upon  this  under- 
standing, each  got  votes  which  it  could  have 
got  in  no  other  way.  It  is  this  fact  which 
gives  to  the  measures  their  true  character;  and 
it  is  the  universal  knowledge  of  this  fact  that 
has  given  them  the  name  of  "compromise,"  so 
expressive  of  that  true  character. 

I  had  asked  "if,  in  carrying  the  Utah  and 
New  Mexico  laws  to  Nebraska,  you  could  clear 
away  other  objection,  but  could  you  leave  Ne- 
braska 'perfectly  free'  to  introduce  slavery  be- 
fore she  forms  a  constitution  during  her  terri- 
torial government,  while  the  Utah  and  New 
Mexico  laws  only  authorize  it  when  they  form 
constitutions  and  are  admitted  into  the  Union?" 
To  this  Judge  Douglas  answered  that  the  Utah 
and  New  Mexico  laws  also  authorized  it  be- 
51 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


fore;  and  to  prove  this  he  read  from  one  of  their 
laws,  as  follows:  "That  the  legislative  power 
of  said  territory  shall  extend  to  all  rightful  sub- 
jects of  legislation,  consistent  with  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  and  the  provisions 
of  this  act." 

Now  it  is  perceived  from  the  reading  of  this 
that  there  is  nothing  express  upon  the  subject, 
but  that  the  authority  is  sought  to  be  implied 
merely  for  the  general  provision  of  "all  rightful 
subjects  of  legislation."  In  reply  to  this  I  in- 
sist, as  a  legal  rule  of  construction,  as  well  as 
the  plain,  popular  view  of  the  matter,  that  the 
express  provisions  for  Utah  and  New  Mexico 
coming  in  with  slavery,  if  they  choose,  when 
they  shall  form  constitutions,  is  an  exclusion 
of  all  implied  authority  on  the  same  subject; 
that  Congress,  having  the  subject  distinctly  in 
their  minds  when  they  made  the  express  pro- 
vision, they  therein  expressed  their  whole  mean- 
ing on  that  subject. 

The  judge  rather  insinuated  that  I  had  found 
it  convenient  to  forget  the  Washington  terri- 
torial law  passed  in  1853.  This  was  a  division 
of  Oregon  organizing  the  northern  part  as  the 
Territory  of  Washington.  He  asserted  that  by 
52 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


this  act  the  ordinance  of  '87,  theretofore  exist- 
ing in  Oregon,  was  repealed;  that  nearly  all  the 
members  of  Congress  voted  for  it,  beginning  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  with  Charles  Al- 
len of  Massachusetts,  and  ending  with  Richard 
Yates  of  Illinois;  and  that  he  could  not  under- 
stand how  those  who  now  oppose  the  Nebraska 
bill  so  voted  there,  unless  it  was  because  it  was 
then  too  soon  after  both  the  great  political  par- 
ties had  ratified  the  compromises  of  1850,  and 
the  ratification  therefore  was  too  fresh  to  be 
then  repudiated. 

Now  I  had  seen  the  Washington  act  before, 
and  I  have  carefully  examined  it  since;  and  I 
aver  that  there  is  no  repeal  of  the  ordinance 
of  '87,  or  of  any  prohibition  of  slavery,  in  it. 
In  express  terms,  there  is  absolutely  nothing  in 
the  whole  law  upon  the  subject — in  fact,  noth- 
ing to  lead  a  reader  to  think  of  the  subject.  To 
my  judgment  it  is  equally  free  from  everything 
from  which  repeal  can  be  legally  implied;  but 
however  this  may  be,  are  men  now  to  be  en- 
trapped by  a  legal  implication,  extracted  from 
covert  language,  introduced  perhaps  for  the  very 
purpose  of  entrapping  them?  I  sincerely  wish 
every  man  could  read  this  law  quite  through, 
53 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


carefully  watching  every  sentence  and  every  line 
for  a  repeal  of  the  ordinance  of  '87,  or  anything 
equivalent  to  it. 

Another  point  on  the  Washington  act.  If 
it  was  intended  to  be  modeled  after  the  Utah 
and  New  Mexico  acts,  as  Judge  Douglas  insists, 
why  was  it  not  inserted  in  it,  as  in  them,  that 
Washington  was  to  come  in  with  or  without 
slavery  as  she  may  choose  at  the  adoption  of  her 
constitution?  It  has  no  such  provision  in  it; 
and  I  defy  the  ingenuity  of  a  man  to  give  a 
reason  for  the  omission,  other  than  that  it  was 
not  intended  to  follow  the  Utah  and  New  Mex- 
ico laws  in  regard  to  the  question  of  slavery. 

The  Washington  act  not  only  differs  vitally 
from  the  Utah  and  New  Mexico  acts,  but  the 
Nebraska  act  differs  vitally  from  both.  By  the 
latter  act  the  people  are  left  "perfectly  free"  to 
regulate  their  own  domestic  concerns,  etc.;  but 
in  all  the  former,  all  their  laws  are  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  Congress,  and  if  disapproved  are  to 
be  null.  The  Washington  act  goes  even  further; 
it  absolutely  prohibits  the  territorial  legislature, 
by  very  strong  and  guarded  language,  from  es- 
tablishing banks  or  borrowing  money  on  the 
faith  of  the  Territory.  Is  this  the  sacred  right 
54 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


of  self-government  we  hear  vaunted  so  much? 
No  sir;  the  Nebraska  bill  finds  no  model  in  the 
act  of  '50  or  the  Washington  act.  It  finds  no 
model  in  any  law  from  Adam  till  today.  As 
Phillips  says  of  Napoleon,  the  Nebraska  act  is 
grand,  gloomy  and  peculiar,  wrapped  in  the 
solitude  of  its  own  originality,  without  a  model 
and  without  a  shadow  upon  the  earth. 

In  the  course  of  his  reply  Senator  Douglas 
remarked  in  substance  that  he  had  always  con- 
sidered this  government  was  made  for  the  white 
people  and  not  for  the  negroes.  Why,  in  point 
of  mere  fact,  I  think  so  too.  But  in  this  re- 
mark of  the  judge  there  is  a  significance  which 
I  think  is  the  key  to  the  great  mistake  (if  there 
is  any  such  mistake)  which  he  has  made  in 
this  Nebraska  measure.  It  shows  that  the  judge 
has  no  very  vivid  impression  that  the  negro  is 
human,  and  consequently  has  no  idea  that  there 
can  be  any  moral  question  in  legislating  about 
him.  In  his  view  the  question  of  whether  a  new 
country  shall  be  slave  or  free,  is  a  matter  of  as 
utter  indifference  as  it  is  whether  his  neighbor 
shall  plant  his  farm  with  tobacco  or  stock  it 
with  horned  cattle.  Now,  whether  this  view  is 
right  or  wrong,  it  is  very  certain  that  the  great 
55 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


mass  of  mankind  take  a  totally  different  view. 
They  consider  slavery  a  great  moral  wrong,  and 
their  feeling  against  it  is  not  evanescent,  but 
eternal.  It  lies  at  the  very  foundation  of  their 
sense  of  justice,  and  it  cannot  be  trifled  with. 
It  is  a  great  and  durable  element  of  popular 
action,  and  I  think  no  statesman  can  safely  dis- 
regard it. 

Our  Senator  also  objects  that  those  who  op- 
pose him  in  this  matter  do  not  entirely  agree 
with  one  another.  He  reminds  me  that  in  my 
firm  adherence  to  the  constitutional  rights  of  the 
slave  States,  I  differ  widely  from  others  who 
are  co-operating  with  me  in  opposing  the  Ne- 
braska bill,  and  he  says  it  is  not  quite  fair  to 
oppose  him  in  this  variety  of  ways.  He  should 
remember  that  he  took  us  by  surprise — astound- 
ed us  by  this  measure.  We  were  thunderstruck 
and  stunned,  and  we  reeled  and  fell  in  utter 
confusion.  But  we  rose,  each  fighting,  grasping 
whatever  he  could  first  reach —  a  scythe,  a  pitch- 
fork, a  chopping  ax,  or  a  butcher's  cleaver.  We 
struck  in  the  direction  of  the  sound,  and  we 
were  rapidly  closing  in  upon  him.  He  must  not 
think  to  divert  us  from  our  purpose  by  show- 
ing us  that  our  drill,  our  dress,  and  our  weapons 
56 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


are  not  entirely  perfect  and  uniform.  When  the 
storm  shall  be  past  he  shall  find  us  still  Ameri- 
cans, no  less  devoted  to  the  continued  union  and 
prosperity  of  the  country  than  heretofore. 


57 


LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS 

THE  PEORIA  DEBATES 
and  LINCOLN'S  POWER 

A  Broadside  Published  1866  by¥m.  H.  Herndon, 
of  Springfield,  111.,  Lincoln's  Law  Partner 

The  writer  of  this  has  been  placed  wrongly 
on  a  particular  record.  The  work  to  which 
allusion  is  made  is  a  Biography  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
written  and  published  in  Springfield,  Mass.  I 
have  hitherto  abstained  from  exposing  the 
mistake,  first,  because  I  thought  it  might  injure 
the  sale  of  the  Biography,  and  second,  because 
I  knew  the  people  would  soon  see  the  error. 
It  is  now  time  to  speak.  The  facts  are  both 
interesting  and  important;  they  show  Douglas 
opinion  of  the  strength  of  Mr.  Lincoln;  they 
show  the  goodness  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  they 
explain  an  event  of  interest.  Hence  I  assert 
that  the  facts  are  interesting  and  important, 
and  should  therefore  be  known,  in  justice  to 
all. 

Now  for  the  facts.      Senator  Douglas  made 
a  speech  in  the  city  of  Springfield,   Illinois,  in 
58 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

1854.  It  was  delivered  to  a  large  and  intelli- 
gent audience  in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, October  4th,  1854;  it  was  in  the 
day  time,  and  during  the  State  Fair.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  present  at  the  speech,  heard  it  atten- 
tively, took  notes,  and  prepared  himself  to 
answer  it  the  next  day.  The  next  day — say 
at  one  o'clock  P.  M.,  Mr.  Lincoln  made  his  ap- 
pearance in  the  same  hall  and  then  and  there 
spoke  to  a  similar  audience — equal  in  number 
and  intelligence. — Senator  Douglas  spoke  for 
about  two  and  one  half  hours  the  day  before. 
Mr.  Lincoln  spoke  on  the  5th  day  of  October 
about  three  and  one  half  hours.  Much  enthus- 
iasm prevailed  at  the  time  of  these  speeches. 
Senator  Douglas  replied  to  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the 
same  day  and  to  the  same  audience.  Douglas 
in  reply  spoke  eloquently  and  energetically  for 
about  one  hour.  Senator  Douglas  at  that  time 
had  a  published  list  of  appointments — say  com- 
mencing at  Springfield,  October  4th,  at  Peoria, 
October  the  16th,  at  Lacon  on  the  17th,  at 
Princeton  on  the  18th,  and  at  Aurora  on  the 
19th.  Mr.  Lincoln's  friends  asked — nay  actu- 
ally petitioned  Mr.  Lincoln,  praying  that  he 
would  follow  Douglas  and  answer  him  when- 
59 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

ever  and  wherever  he  spoke.  Douglas  did  go 
to  Peoria  to  fill  his  appointments:  he  spoke  in 
Peoria  according  to  published  notice  on  the  16th 
of  October  1854. — Mr.  Lincoln  did  follow 
Senator  Douglas  to  Peoria  and  did  hear  him 
speak — did  take  notes — did  arrange  them,  and 
did  answer  Senator  Douglas,  say  at  7  o'clock  in 
the  evening  of  that  day  in  the  same  house.  Sen- 
ator Douglas  I  presume  was  present.  Senator 
Douglas  replied,  as  at  the  Hall  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  in  Springfield,  he  concluding 
both  debates.  It  was  the  fixed  determination  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  follow  Senator  Douglas  to  his 
appointments,  and  to  the  end.  He  had  made 
full  preparations  to  go  to  Lacon,  Princeton  and 
Aurora,  as  well  as  elsewhere. 

After  the  debate  was  over  Senator  Douglas, 
probably  on  October  the  17th,  sent  for  Mr. 
Lincoln  at  Peoria  or  on  the  way  to  Lacon.  Mr. 
Lincoln  did  go  and  see  Senator  Douglas:  they 
had  a  private  conversation  about  the  speeches 
that  were  to  be  made.  Senator  Douglas  at 
that  meeting  said  to  Mr.  Lincoln  substantially, 
if  not  in  words,  this:  "Mr.  Lincoln,  you  have 
made  me  more  trouble  on  this  Territorial  ques- 
tion, and  the  facts  and  laws  of  their  organiza- 
60 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

tion,  with  intents  and  purposes,  in  the  govern- 
ment, since  its  organization  than  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  You 
know  what  trouble  they  have  given  me.  You 
have  given  me  more  trouble  than  all  the  oppo- 
sition. I  now  propose  this  to  you:  If  you  will 
go  home,  and  make  no  more  speeches  at  my 
appointments  I  will  go  to  no  more  of  my  pub- 
lished places  of  speaking,  and  remain  silent.  I 
can  make  nothing  ofF  you,  and  you  can't  off 
me.  "Your  will  be  done.  Senator  Douglas;  I 
don't  wish  to  crowd  you,"  replied  Mr.  Lincoln. 
Douglas'  remaining  published  places  were  La- 
con,  Princeton,  and  Aurora.  Senator  Douglas 
did  go  to  Lacon.  Lincoln  did  follow.  Senator 
Douglas  made  some  excuse  to  his  friends  at  this 
place  that  his  throat  was  sore.  Mr.  Lincoln 
said  he  would  take  no  advantage  of  Senator 
Douglas'  situation. 

The  two  great  men  then  understood  each 
other,  and  Lincoln  in  kindness  and  nobleness 
never  insinuated  what  was  the  matter,  nor  did 
he  crowd  Senator  Douglas.  Mr.  Lincoln  made 
his  promises  in  good  faith  and  really  kept  them 
to  the  end,  inviolate  in  fact  and  spirit.  Mr. 
Lincoln  returned  to  his  home  in  the  city  of 
61 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


Springfield,  Illinois,  about  the  19th  of  October, 
1854.  He  remained  in  this  city  till  the  elec- 
tion was  over,  making  no  more  speeches,  I  say, 
during  that  canvass.  Several  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
friends  met  him  in  his  office  some  days  after 
the  19th  of  October.  Some  of  these  men  were 
the  original  petitioners  spoken  of  before.  These 
men,  or  some  of  them  are  as  follows:  Peyton 
L.  Harrison,  Ben'j.  F.  Irwin — a  petitioner — 
Isaac  Cogdall,  and  myself.  Mr.  Irwin  prob- 
ably asked  him  why  he  did  not  follow  Senator 
Douglas,  as  he  had  promised  to  do  as  under- 
stood. This  placed  Mr.  Lincoln  in  a  dilemma; 
his  word  was  out  to  follow  and  answer  Sena- 
tor Douglas  and  the  petitioner  asked  him  why 
he  did  not  follow.  Mr.  Lincoln  after  a  few 
minutes'  reflection  then  told  the  reasons,  en- 
joining privacy  on  all  as  above  given;  he  good 
naturedly  said  in  mitigation  or  excuse:  "Senator 
Douglas  flattered  me  into  the  arrangement,  and 
you  must  not  blame  me." 

A  few  months — say  one  or  two  months — 
after  Mr.  Lincoln's  assassination,  a  gentleman 
from  Springfield,  Mass.,  came  into  my  office 
and  presented  me  with  a  letter  of  introduction 
from  a  friend  in  Chicago,  as  my  memory  serves 
62 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


me.  Probably  the  letter  was  from  my  friend, 
Horace  White,  of  the  Chicago  Tribune.  The 
New  England  gentleman — a  member  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society — was  informed 
probably  at  Chicago  that  I  was  writing  an 
analytical  life  of  Mr.  Lincoln:  he  was  so  in- 
formed in  this  city.  He  made  known  his  business 
and  asked  me  several  questions — none  of  which 
did  I  object  to — was  really  desirous  of  helping 
the  gentleman,  and  so  told  him.  I  answered 
the  questions  quickly,  frankly  and  truthfully; 
he  was  with  me  taking  notes  for  parts  of  two 
days.  I  told  him  many  things,  without  being 
asked,  it  may  be.  I  quit  my  business,  dropped 
my  professional  duties  for  those  parts  of  days, 
in  order  to  accommodate  and  assist  the  man.  He 
got  from  me  what  I  think  valuable;  he  evident- 
ly thought  so,  because  he  used  it  in  the  Bio- 
graphy, with  Mr.  Lincoln's  strong,  gnarly 
sentences  toned  down,  in  some  instances,  to  suit 
an  over-refined,  distorted  taste,  as  I  think.  The 
Massachusetts  gentleman  goes  back  to  his  home 
in  the  East,  sits  down  in  his  office,  and  pens 
the  following  lines,  at  pages  141  and  142, 
speaking  of  the  Peoria  debate  and  what  I  told 
him: 

63 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


"At  the  close  of  the  debate,  the  two  com- 
batants held  a  conference,  and  the  result  of 
which  has  been  variously  reported.  One  author- 
ity* (  *William  H.  Herndon,  in  a  foot  note,) 
states  that  Mr.  Douglas  sent  for  Mr.  Lincoln, 
and  told  him  that  if  he  would  speak  no  more 
during  the  campaign,  he  (Douglas)  would  go 
home  and  remain  silent  during  the  same  period, 
and  that  this  arrangement  was  agreed  upon,  and 
its  terms  fulfilled.  That  there  was  a  conference 
on  the  subjects  sought,  there  is  no  doubt,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Lincoln  promised  not 
to  challenge  him  again  to  debate,  during  the 
canvass,  but  abundant  evidence  exists  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  did  not  leave  the  field  at  all,  but  spoke 
in  various  parts  of  the  State." 

I  am  not  objecting  to  the  manner  of  his 
statement,  though  that  is  not  correct.  I  am 
not  raising  any  objection  on  that  issue.  Let 
it  stand  as  it  is.  I  have  italicized  some  words 
which  are  not  in  the  original.  Here  is  a  direct 
assertion,  on  my  part,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  said 
as  above  stated  by  me.  I  did  make  the  asser- 
tion as  I  state  it.  Here  in  the  book,  in  the 
sentence  quoted,  is  a  denial  of  what  I  said,  and 
now  repeat.  Would  it  not  have  been  quite 
64 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

gentlemanly  for  the  man  to  have  given  me  a 
chance  to  correct  the  error,  by  informing  me  of  it 
by  letter,  or  otherwise.'5  If  he  did  not  choose  so 
to  do,  would  it  not  have  been  quite  gentlemanly 
to  have  left  my  name  out,  as  the  author  of  the 
story,  or  even  a  part  of  it?  There  is  an  allega- 
tion that  after  the  16th  of  October,  1854,  and 
after  Mr.  Lincoln's  agreement  with  Senator 
Douglas,  that  Mr.  Lincoln,  during  the  canvass 
of  that  year,  did  on  various  occasions  and  places 
address  the  people  of  Illinois  on  the  questions 
of  the  day.  One  of  three  things  is  true:  First, 
I  told  a  lie:  second,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  acted  in 
bad  faith — broke  his  sacred  honor  by  addressing 
the  people  after  the  16th  of  October;  or,  third 
that  the  gentleman  has  no  abundant  evidence 
to  prove  that  Mr.  Lincoln,  after  that  16th  day, 
did  speak  "in  various  parts  of  the  State."  But 
suppose  that  Mr.  Lincoln  and  myself  are  cor- 
rect, then  what?  Let  me  state  a  fact  here,  by 
way  of  note  as  it  were.  It  is  said  to  me,  on 
what  I  consider  good  authority,  that  Senator 
Douglas  did  speak  at  Princeton,  on  the  18th 
day  of  October,  contrary  to  his  agreement  with 
Mr.  Lincoln.  I  regret  to  learn  this,  and  leave 
an  explanation  to  come  from  Senator  Douglas' 
65 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

friend,  who  should,  for  his  credit,  investigate 
the  matter  thoroughly  and  well.  Senator  Doug- 
las may  have  been  driven  to  this  by  the  people 
— the  Democrats  and  Republicans  at  that  place 
and  time;  or  he  may  have  been  bantered  into  it 
by  the  Republicans,  who  had  then  and  there 
an  eloquent  champion  on  the  spot,  ready  and 
anxious  to  answer  Senator  Douglas.  The  gen- 
tleman here  spoken  of,  or  alluded  to,  was  the 
Hon.  Owen  Lovejoy.  There  is  some  excuse, 
some  explanation,  some  probable  cause  why 
Senator  Douglas  spoke  at  Princeton,  some- 
where, and  it  can  be  found  out. 

Now,  as  to  that  abundant  evidence,  let  us  see. 
Mr.  Lincoln  returned  to  his  home  in  this  city 
about  the  19th  day  of  October — three  days  after 
the  Peoria  debate;  he  sat  down  and  here  com- 
menced writing  out,  as  rapidly  as  he  could,  his 
Peoria  speech,  which,  in  substance,  is  the  Spring- 
field speech,  with  the  fire  died  out,  made  Octo- 
ber the  5th;  he  was  a  candidate  for  the  State 
Legislature  at  that  time,  probably  against  his 
will.  The  Sangamon  Circuit  Court  was  com- 
ing on  apace  and  he  must  turn  some  of  his  at- 
tention to  these  things.  The  first  part  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  speech  appears  in  the  Illinois  Daily 
66 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


Journal — now  called — October  21st.  The  entire 
speech  runs  through  seven  numbers  of  the  Daily 
Journal.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  at  home,  writing 
out  and  correcting  the  proof  sheets  of  his  speech. 
I  well  know,  well  remember  this.  I  so  assert 
this  now.  The  full  speech  as  written  out  by 
Mr.  Lincoln,  first  appeared  as  it  now  stands 
in  the  Weekly  Journal,  Nov.  the  2d,  1854,  No. 
1 ,  213.  The  November  election,  by  the  Consti- 
tution and  laws  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  took 
place — came  off,  on  the  7th  day  of  November, 
1854.  There  are  five  days  between  the  2d  of 
November  and  the  7th.  Will  some  gentleman 
show,  procure  that  abundant  evidence  spoken 
of?  Will  some  good  man  show  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln made,  after  the  16th  of  October,  various 
speeches  to  the  people  of  Illinois,  during  the  can- 
vass of  that  year?  Will  some  searching,  inquir- 
ing mind  show  any  evidence  by  the  record  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  spoke  at  all  after  the  day  agreed 
upon  between  Senator  Douglas  and  himself? 
I  aver  that  there  is  no  such  abundant  evidence 
of  record,  nor  other  well  authenticated  evidence 
anywhere.  No  man  can  show  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
violated  his  sacred  honor.  No  man  can  show 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  ever  addressed  the  people  after 
67 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


his  promise.  I  aver  that  he  told  me — rather  told 
Ben'j  F.  Irwin,  Peyton  L.  Harrison,  Isaac  Cog- 
dall  and  myself,  that  he  had  made  the  agree- 
ment with  Senator  Douglas  substantially  as  I 
state  it.  Men  may  carelessly,  loosely  say  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  did  violate  his  honor,  by  saying 
that  he  did  speak  contrary  to  the  above  agree- 
ment. For  Mr.  Lincoln's  sake,  and  for  my  own 
sake,  I  appeal  to,  and  ask  for  the  record,  or  any 
other  valid,  reliable  evidence.  If  I  assert,  as  I 
do,  these  things,  I  wilfully  tell  falsehood;  and 
I  ought  to  have  no  quarter,  and  because  of  that 
I  ask  for  none. 

Feeling  that  I  have  been  badly  treated,  and 
misplaced,  as  it  were,  wantonly,  on  the  record, 
I  am  compelled  in  self  defense  to  publish  this 
letter.  It  is  probable  that  the  Biographer  would, 
in  another  edition  of  the  work  correct  the  error, 
but  I  know  of  no  law  compelling  me  to  wait 
for  that  contingency.  The  publication  of  this 
letter  cannot  injure  the  sale  of  his  life  of  Mr. 

Lincoln. 

Truly  yours, 

W.  H.  HERNDON. 


68 


CHAPTER  SIX 

Nicolay  and  Hay  in  their  Life  of  Lincoln 
speak  of  the  encounter  of  Judge  Douglas  and 
Lincoln  at  the  Illinois  State  Fair  at  Springfield, 
as  a  debate.  This  is  hardly  correct,  as  State 
Fair  Week  was  an  occasion  when  speakers  from 
all  parts  presented  their  views  and  was  followed 
at  this  time — Lincoln  and  Douglas  speaking  up- 
on different  days. 

Their  account  of  the  Peoria  meeting  and  com- 
ments upon  Lincoln's  speech  are  of  so  much  in- 
terest that  I  venture  to  here  reproduce  what  they 
have  to  say.  (Vol.  1,  Page  378,  "Abraham 
Lincoln,  Nicolay  and  Hay.") 

"Douglas  made  his  speech,  according  to 
notice,  on  the  first  day  of  the  fair,  Tuesday,  Oc- 
tober 3.  'I  will  mention,'  said  he,  'in  his  open- 
ing remarks,  'that  it  is  understood  by  some  gen- 
tlemen that  Mr.  Lincoln,  of  this  city,  is  expected 
to  answer  me.  If  this  is  the  understanding,  I 
wish  that  Mr.  Lincoln  would  step  forward  and 
let  us  arrange  some  plan  upon  which  to  carry 
out  this  discussion.'  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  there 
at  the  moment,  and  the  arrangement  could  not 
then  be  made.  Unpropitious  weather  had 
69 


SENATOR  STEPHEN  A.   DOUGLAS 


"The  first  duty  of  an  American  citizen  is  obedience  to 
the  Constitution  and  Laws  of  his  Country." 

— Stephen  A.  Douglas. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

brought  the  meeting  to  the  Representatives'  Hall 
in  the  State  House,  which  was  densely  packed. 
The  next  day  found  the  same  hall  filled  as  before 
to  hear  Mr.  Lincoln.  Douglas  occupied  a  seat 
just  in  front  of  him,  and  in  his  rejoinder  he 
explained  that  'my  friend  Mr.  Lincoln  expressly 
invited  me  to  stay  and  hear  him  speak  today,  as 
he  heard  me  yesterday,  and  to  answer  and  defend 
myself  as  best  I  could.  I  here  thank  him  for 
his  courteous  offer.'  The  occasion  greatly  equal- 
ized the  relative  standing  of  the  champions.  The 
familiar  surroundings,  the  presence  and  hearty 
encouragement  of  his  friends,  put  Lincoln  in  his 
best  vein.  His  bubbling  humor,  his  perfect 
temper,  and  above  all  the  overwhelming  current 
of  his  historical  arraignment  extorted  the  admir- 
ation of  even  his  political  enemies.  'His  speech 
was  four  hours  in  length,'  wrote  one  of  these, 
'and  was  conceived  and  expressed  in  a  most 
happy  and  pleasant  style,  and  was  received  with 
abundant  applause.  At  times  he  made  statements 
which  brought  Senator  Douglas  to  his  feet,  and 
then  good-humored  passages  of  wit  created 
much  interest  and  enthusiasm.'  All  reports 
plainly  indicate  that  Douglas  was  astonished 
and  disconcerted  at  this  unexpected  strength  of 
argument,  and  that  he  struggled  vainly  through 
71 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


a  two  hours'  rejoinder  to  break  the  force  of  Lin- 
coln's victory  in  the  debate.  Lincoln  had  hith- 
erto been  the  foremost  man  in  his  district.  That 
single  effort  made  him  the  leader  on  the  new 
question  in  his  State. 

"The  fame  of  this  success  brought  Lincoln 
urgent  calls  from  all  the  places  where  Douglas 
was  expected  to  speak.  Accordingly,  twelve 
days  afterwards,  October  16,  they  once  more 
met  in  debate,  at  Peoria.  Lincoln,  as  before, 
gave  Douglas  the  opening  and  closing  speeches, 
explaining  that  he  was  willing  to  yield  this  ad- 
vantage in  order  to  secure  a  hearing  from  the 
Democratic  portion  of  his  listeners.  The  audi- 
ence was  a  large  one,  but  not  so  representative  in 
its  character  as  that  at  Springfield.  The  occa- 
sion was  made  memorable,  however,  by  the  fact 
that  when  Lincoln  returned  home  he  wrote  out 
and  published  his  speech.  We  have  therefore 
the  revised  text  of  his  argument,  and  are  able  to 
estimate  its  character  and  value.  Marking  as  it 
does  with  unmistakable  precision  a  step  in  the 
second  period  of  his  intellectual  development,  it 
deserves  the  careful  attention  of  the  student  of 
his  life. 

72 


NEAR  THIS  SPOT   OCCURRED  THE  FAMOUS 
~^.  POLITICAL  DEBATE   BETWEEN  .^ 

r\     ABRAHAM  LINCOLN         CS 

AND 

STEPHEN  A.DOUGLAS       : 

%  OCTOBER  16, 1854  *l&3> 


OF  A  FREE  GOVI 
LAW  FOR  ALL,!' 


Mimimimmmm. 


)N  OF  FREE  MEN,  WOJ 


THE  FIRST  DUTY  OF  AN  AMI 
CONSTITUTION  AND  LAWS  O 


ERECTED  BY  GEORGE  A.WILSON  Cikuus  mu.  19 

LADIES  OF  THE  GRAND  ARMY  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 


BRONZE  PLATE  ON  THE  PRESENT  PEORIA  COUNTY 
COURT  HOUSE. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

"After  the  lapse  of  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  the  critical  reader  still  finds  it  a  model 
of  brevity,  directness,  terse  diction,  exact  and 
lucid  historical  statement,  and  full  of  logical 
propositions  so  short  and  so  strong  as  to  resem- 
ble mathematical  axioms.  Above  all  it  is  pre- 
vaded  by  an  elevation  of  thought  and  aim  that 
lifts  it  out  of  the  commonplace  of  mere  party 
controversy.  Comparing  it  with  his  later 
speeches,  we  find  it  to  contain  not  only  the  argu- 
ment of  the  hour,  but  the  premonition  of  the 
broader  issues  into  which  the  new  struggle  was 
destined  soon  to  expand. 

"The  main,  broad  current  of  his  reasoning 
was  to  vindicate  and  restore  the  policy  of  the 
fathers  of  the  country  in  the  restriction  of  slav- 
ery; but  running  through  this  like  a  thread  of 
gold  was  the  demonstration  of  the  essential  in- 
justice and  immorality  of  the  system.     He  said: 

"This  declared  indifference  but,  as  I  must 
think,  covert  zeal  for  the  spread  of  slavery,  I 
cannot  but  hate.  I  hate  it  because  of  the  mon- 
strous injustice  of  slavery  itself.  I  hate  it  be- 
cause it  deprives  our  republican  example  of  its 
just  influence  in  the  world;  enables  the  enemies 
of  free  institutions  with  plausibility  to  taunt  us 
as  hypocrites;  causes  the  real  friends  of  freedom 
74 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


to  doubt  our  sincerity;  and  especially  because  it 
forces  so  many  really  good  men  among  our- 
selves into  an  open  war  with  the  very  funda- 
mental principles  of  civil  liberty,  criticizing 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  insisting 
that  there  is  no  right  principle  of  action  but  self 
interest. 

"The  doctrine  of  self-government  is  right, — 
absolutely  and  eternally  right, — but  it  has  no 
just  application  as  here  attempted.  Or  perhaps 
I  should  rather  say  that  whether  it  has  such  just 
application,  depends  upon  whether  a  negro  is 
not,  or  is,  a  man.  If  he  is  not  a  man,  in  that 
case  he  who  is  a  man  may  as  a  matter  of  self- 
government  do  just  what  he  pleases  with  him. 
But  if  the  negro  is  a  man,  is  it  not  to  that  extent 
a  total  destruction  of  self-government  to  say 
that  he  too  shall  not  govern  himself?  When 
the  white  man  governs  himself,  that  is  self- 
government;  but  when  he  governs  himself  and 
also  governs  another  man,  that  is  more  than 
self-government — that  is  despotism. 

"What  I  do  say  is,  that  no  man  is  good 
enough  to  govern  another  man  without  that 
other's  consent. 

"The  master  not  only  governs  the  slave  with- 
out his  consent,  but  he  governs  him  by  a  set  of 

75 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


rules  altogether  different  from  those  which  he 
prescribes  for  himself.  Allow  all  the  governed 
an  equal  voice  in  the  government;  that,  and  that 
only,  is  self-government. 

"Slavery  is  founded  in  the  selfishness  of  man's 
nature — opposition  to  it,  in  his  love  of  justice. 
These  principles  are  an  eternal  antagonism;  and 
when  brought  into  collision  so  fiercely  as  slav- 
ery extension  brings  them,  shocks  and  throes 
and  convulsions  must  ceaselessly  follow.  Re- 
peal the  Missouri  Compromise — repeal  all  com- 
promise— repeal  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence— repeal  all  past  history — still  you  cannot 
repeal  human  nature. 

"I  particularly  object  to  the  new  position 
which  the  avowed  principle  of  this  Nebraska 
law  gives  to  slavery  in  the  body  politic.  I  ob- 
ject to  it  because  it  assumes  that  there  can  be 
moral  right  in  the  enslaving  of  one  man  by  an- 
other. I  object  to  it  as  a  dangerous  dalliance 
for  a  free  people, — a  sad  evidence  that  feeling 
prosperity,  we  forget  right, — that  liberty  as  a 
principle  we  have  ceased  to  revere. 

"Little  by  little,  but  steadily  as  man's  march 
to  the  grave,   we  have  been  giving  up  the  old 
for  the  new  faith.      Near  eighty  years  ago  we 
76 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

began  by  declaring  that  all  men  are  created 
equal;  but  now  from  that  beginning  we  have 
run  down  to  the  other  declaration  that  for  some 
men  to  enslave  others  is  a  'sacred  right  of  self- 
government.'  These  principles  cannot  stand  to- 
gether. They  are  as  opposite  as  God  and  mam- 
mon. 

"Our  Republican  robe  is  soiled  and  trailed  in 
the  dust.  Let  us  repurify  it.  Let  us  turn  and 
wash  it  white,  in  the  spirit  if  not  the  blood  of 
the  Revolution.  Let  us  turn  slavery  from  its 
claims  of  'Moral  right'  back  upon  its  existing 
legal  rights,  and  its  arguments  of  'necessity.' 
Let  us  return  it  to  the  position  our  fathers  gave 
it,  and  there  let  it  rest  in  peace.  Let  us  readopt 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  the  prac- 
tices and  policy  which  harmonize  with  it.  Let 
North  and  South — let  all  Americans — let  all 
lovers  of  liberty  everywhere — join  in  the  great 
and  good  work.  If  we  do  this,  we  shall  not 
only  have  saved  the  Union,  but  we  shall  have 
so  saved  it,  as  to  make  and  to  keep  it  forever 
worthy  of  the  saving.  We  shall  have  so  saved 
it  that  the  succeeding  millions  of  free,  happy 
people,  the  world  over,  shall  rise  up  and  call  us 
blessed  to  the  latest  generations." 

77 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 

These  recollections  of  my  boyhood  days  are 
as  pictures  of  the  old  masters  whose  colors  re- 
main vivid  through  all  the  years.  No  words  of 
mine  can  better  describe  what  memory  recalls  of 
those  stirring  days,  than  the  following  from  the 
pen  of  the  special  correspondent  of  the  New 
York  Post  written  four  years  after  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  met  in  Peoria: 

"It  is  astonishing  how  deep  an  interest  in 
politics  this  people  take.  Over  long  weary  miles 
of  hot  and  dusty  prairie  the  processions  of  eager 
partisans  come — on  foot,  on  horseback,  in 
wagons  drawn  by  horses  or  mules;  men,  women 
and  children,  old  and  young;  the  half  sick,  just 
out  of  the  last  'shake';  children  in  arms,  infants 
at  the  maternal  fount,  pushing  on  in  clouds  of 
dust  and  beneath  the  blazing  sun;  settling  down 
at  the  town  where  the  meeting  is,  with  hardly  a 
chance  for  sitting,  and  even  less  opportunity  for 
eating,  waiting  in  anxious  groups  for  hours  at 
the  places  of  speaking,  talking,  discussing,  liti- 
gious, vociferous,  while  the  war  artillery,  the 
music  of  the  bands,  the  waving  of  banners,  the 
78 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


huzzahs  of  the  crowds,  as  delegation  after  dele- 
gation appears;  the  cry  of  the  peddlers  vending 
all  sorts  of  ware,  from  an  infallible  cure  of 
'agur'  to  a  monster  watermelon  in  slices  to  suit 
purchasers — combine  to  render  the  occasion  one 
scene  of  confusion  and  commotion.  The  hour 
of  one  arrives  and  a  perfect  rush  is  made  for  the 
grounds;  a  column  of  dust  is  rising  to  the 
heavens  and  fairly  deluging  those  who  are 
hurrying  on  through  it.  Then  the  speakers 
come  with  flags,  and  banners,  and  music,  sur- 
rounded by  cheering  partisans.  Their  arrival  at 
the  ground  and  immediate  approach  to  the 
stand  is  the  signal  for  shouts  that  rend  the 
heavens.  They  are  introduced  to  the  audience 
amidst  prolonged  and  enthusiastic  cheers;  they 
are  interrupted  by  frequent  applause;  and  they 
sit  down  finally  amid  the  same  uproarous  dem- 
onstration. The  audience  sit  or  stand  patiently 
throughout,  and,  as  the  last  word  is  spoken, 
make  a  break  for  their  homes,  first  hunting  up 
lost  members  of  their  families,  getting  their 
scattered  wagonloads  together,  and,  as  the  day- 
light fades  away,  entering  again  upon  the  broad 
prairies  and  slowly  picking  their  way  back  to 
the  place  of  beginning." 
79 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

In  1854  the  old  Court  House  stood  in  the 
same  place  as  the  present  one.  From  the  north 
corner  of  the  square  extending  to  the  foot  of 
the  bluff  and  running  through  where  now 
stands  the  Woman's  Club  House,  was  an  ave- 
nue of  locust  trees  fragrant  in  blossom  time. 
Around  the  square  were  hitching  racks  to  which 
were  tied  horses  and  mules  attached  to  vehicles 
of  every  description — delegations  arriving  were 
preceded  by  floats.  Usually  there  was  one  con- 
taining Miss  Columbia,  surrounded  by  young 
ladies  in  white,  wearing  sashes  upon  which  were 
lettered  the  names  of  the  States  represented.  I 
recall  my  mother  entertaining  one  such,  and  im- 
provising for  them  beds  upon  the  floor.  To 
cook  for  thirty  or  forty  was  no  trick  for  the 
efficient  housewife  of  those  days.  Flags  were 
almost  invariably  mounted  upon  saplings  with 
a  bunch  of  leaves  at  the  top.  At  night  illum- 
inations glowed  from  candles  set  in  rows  in 
windows.     It  is  all  a  glorious  memory. 


We  regret  that  we  have  been  unable  to  pro- 
cure any  part  of  the  address  of  Senator  Douglas 
on  this  occasion. 


81 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  writer  has  taken  for 
his  text — "I  saw  and  heard  Lincoln  and  Doug- 
las when  a  boy."  This  only!  Variety  may 
lead  me  far  afield  in  striving  to  impart  a  per- 
sonal touch  to  my  sketch,  but  I  have  found  that 
children  enjoy  those  stories  most  to  which  one 
adds  a  relationship.  No  matter  how  remote,  and 
what  are  we  all  but  grown  up  children — robbed 
of  their  bloom  and  touched  with  the  canker  of 
egotistic  wisdom.  For  wisdom  is  the  name  we 
give  our  knowledge  of  evil,  whereas,  true  wis- 
dom dwells  only  in  the  innocence  of  childhood. 
Probably  no  one  stood  higher  in  the  esteem 
and  confidence  of  Lincoln,  than  Colonel  Alex- 
ander K.  McClure,  whose  first  wife  was  a 
cousin  of  my  father. 

The  following  is  an  account  of  Colonel 
McClure: 

Colonel  Alexander  K.  McClure,  the  editorial 
director  of  the  Philadelphia  Times,  which  he 
founded  in  1875,  began  his  forceful  career  as 
a  tanner's  apprentice  in  the  mountains  of  Penn- 
sylvania three  score  years  ago.  He  tanned  hides 
all  day,  and  read  exchanges  nights  in  the  neigh- 
82 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


boring  weekly  newspaper  office.  The  learned 
tanner's  boy  also  became  the  aptest  tanner  in 
the  county,  and  the  editor  testified  his  admira- 
tion for  young  McClure's  attainments  by  send- 
ing him  to  edit  a  new  weekly  paper  which  the 
exigencies  of  politics  called  into  being  in  an 
adjoining  county. 

The  lad  was  over  six  feet  high,  had  the 
thews  of  Ajax  and  the  voice  of  Boanerges, 
and  knew  enough  about  shoe-leather  not  to  be 
afraid  of  any  man  that  stood  in  it.  He  made 
his  paper  a  success,  went  into  politics,  and  made 
that  a  success,  studied  law  with  William  Mc- 
Lellan.  and  made  that  a  success,  and  actually 
went  into  the  army — and  made  that  a  success, 
by  an  interesting  accident,  which  brought  him 
into  close  personal  relations  with  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, whom  he  had  helped  to  nominate,  serv- 
ing as  chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Com- 
mittee of  Pennsylvania  through   the  campaign. 

In  1862  the  government  needed  troops  badly, 
and  in  each  Pennsylvania  county  Republicans 
and  Democrats  were  appointed  to  assist  in  the 
enrollment,  under  the  State  laws.  McClure, 
working  day  and  night  at  Harrisburg.  saw  con- 
scripts coming  in  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand  a 
83 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    18  54 


day,  only  to  fret  in  idleness  against  the  army 
red-tape  which  held  them  there  instead  of  send- 
ing a  regiment  a  day  to  the  front,  as  McClure 
demanded  should  be  done.  The  military  offi- 
cer continued  to  dispatch  two  companies  a  day 
— leaving  the  mass  of  the  conscripts  to  be  fed 
by  the  contractors. 

McClure  went  to  Washington  and  said  to 
the  President,  "You  must  send  a  mustering  of- 
ficer to  Harrisburg  who  will  do  as  I  say;  I 
can't  stay  there  any  longer  under  existing  con- 
ditions." 

Lincoln  sent  into  another  room  for  Adju- 
tant-General Thomas.  "General,"  said  he, 
"what  is  the  highest  rank  of  military  officer 
at  Harrisburg?"  "Captain,  sir,"  said  Thomas. 
"Bring  me  a  commission  for  an  Assistant  Ad- 
jutant-General of  the  United  States  Army," 
said  Lincoln. 

So  Adjutant-General  McClure  was  mustered 
in,  and  after  that  a  regiment  a  day  of  boys  in 
blue  left  Harrisburg  for  the  front.  Colonel 
McClure  is  one  of  the  group  of  great  Celt- 
American  editors,  which  included  Medill,  Mc- 
Cullagh  and  McLean. 

84 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

Long  after  the  war  Colonel  McClure  col- 
lected and  published  a  book  of  Lincoln  stories 
— "Lincoln's  Own  Yarns  and  Stories." — This 
one  interested  me: 

"HOW  HE  GOT  BLACKSTONE" 

The  following  story  was  told  by  Mr.  Lin- 
coln to  Mr.  A.  J.  Conant,  the  artist,  who  paint- 
ed his  portrait  in  Springfield  in   1860: 

"One  day  a  man  who  was  migrating  to  the 
West  drove  up  in  front  of  my  store  with  a 
wagon  which  contained  his  family  and  house- 
hold plunder.  He  asked  me  if  I  would  buy  an 
old  barrel  for  which  he  had  no  room  in  his 
wagon,  and  which  he  said  contained  nothing  of 
special  value.  I  did  not  want  it,  but  to  oblige 
him  I  bought  it,  and  paid  him,  I  think,  half  a 
dollar  for  it.  Without  further  examination,  I 
put  it  away  in  the  store  and  forgot  all  about 
it.  Some  time  after,  in  overhauling  things,  I 
came  upon  the  barrel,  and,  emptying  it  upon 
the  floor  to  see  what  it  contained,  I  found  at  the 
bottom  of  the  rubbish  a  complete  edition  of 
Blackstone's  Commentaries.  I  began  to  read 
those  famous  works,  and  I  had  plenty  of  time; 
for  during  the  long  summer  days,  when  the 
85 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


farmers  were  busy  with  their  crops,  my  cus- 
tomers were  few  and  far  between.  The  more 
I  read" — this  he  said  with  unusual  emphasis — 
"the  more  intensely  interested  I  became. 
Never  in  my  whole  life  was  my  mind  so  thor- 
oughly absorbed.  I  read  until  I  devoured 
them." 

Grant  Wright  is  an  artist — a  Peoria  boy — 
with  a  studio  in  New  York.  Some  time  ago 
he  sent  me  a  "leaf  from  my  sketch  book" — 
It  is  a  pencil  portrait  of  Conant — then  in  his 
94th  year.  (A  photograph  of  the  original  is 
shown  on  another  page. )  The  sketch  was  made 
November  1  2th,  1914.  Below  the  picture  Grant 
has  written  "Dear  Cloyd:  On  the  opposite  side 
is  a  little  talk  I  had  with  this  grand  old  man 
of  the  Art  World  just  before  he  died.  He  paint- 
ed from  life  the  only  smiling  Lincoln — The 
portrait  is  now  in  the  Phillipsie  Manor  Yonk- 
ers.  I  also  record  the  reporter's  story  of  the 
New  York  Herald  two  years  before."  On  the 
back  of  the  leaf  he  writes,  as  follows: 

"Mr.  Conant  passes  his  declining  years  with 
his  daughter,  Mrs.  Smith.     His  portrait  of  Gen- 
eral Anderson   whom  he  esteemed  very  highly 
we  worked  on  with  great  zeal  and  a  study  for 
86 


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ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

perfect  detail  as  to  surroundings,  drapery,  etc., 
— cannon,  carriage,  flag  backers — the  grand  old 
man  always  bids  one  a  farewell.  N.  Y.  Herald 
1912." 

"Dear  B.  C: 

"Eight  years  ago  I  made  this  sketch  in  this 
grand  old  man's  studio  (59  W.  10th  St.)  a 
building  devoted  to  the  welfare  of  what  we 
call  the  ancient  and  honorables  in  the  Art 
World.  The  building  is  full  of  studios  of 
past  masters  in  the  Arts  who  had  passed  the 
Three  Score  and  ten,  and  were  yet  progressive 
and  productive.  Thos.  Wood,  Edward  Gay, 
Seymour  Guy,  Wm.  M.  Chase,  at  one  time  had 
their  studios  there — this  to  describe  the  old 
10th  St.  Studio  Building.  In  1916  the  old 
gentleman  passed  to  the  great  beyond  (96  years 
old.)  He  was  one  of  the  most  lovable  char- 
acters— one  of  the  grandest  men,  and  his  rela- 
tion with  past  history  made  him  mighty  inter- 
esting. He  had  in  his  studio  Gen.  Anderson's 
picture,  and,  of  course  the  smiling  face  of  Lin- 
coln whom  he  loved  to  talk  about.  He  told 
me  how  Lincoln  described  to  him  one  of  his 
forensic  spars  with  Douglas— how  Douglas  had 
accused  him  of  everything  from  being  a  failure 
88 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

to  a  disloyalist.  'He  comes  to  you  after  vot- 
ing in  Congress  to  withdraw  supplies  from  our 
soldiers  in  Mexico' — said  Douglas,  'because  he 
was  opposed  to  the  Mexican  war.  This  man 
who  has  made  a  failure  at  everything  he  has 
undertaken:  he  was  a  failure  as  a  farmer;  as  a 
surveyor:  as  lawyer:  as  soldier — yes,  and  as  a 
saloon  keeper — he  couldn't  make  a  living  a 
decent  one  selling  rum,  and  now  he  comes  to 
you  asking  for  my  seat  in  the  Senate.'  Here  old 
man  Conant  told  me  Lincoln  chuckled  like  a 
school  boy — 'Then,'  said  Lincoln  'it  was  my 
turn.  I  thanked  Judge  Douglas  for  having 
such  an  accurate  biography  of  me — he  covers 
my  pedigree  about  as  well  as  anyone  could,  but 
about  my  vote  on  the  Mexican  affair — Here  is 
Judge  Fithian  (or  Fitter,)  who  is  a  Democratic 
colleague  of  Douglas,  let  him  say.  I  brought 
Fithian  right  out  of  his  audience — brought  him 
up  on  the  platform  and  made  him  admit  that 
I  was  not  in  Congress  when  the  question  of 
appropriation  for  soldiers  was  voted  on.'  Then 
said  Mr.  Conant — Lincoln  chuckled  again.  'I 
said  yes,  Judge  Douglas  certainly  covered  me 
pretty  close.  I  was  a  failure  as  a  politician.  I 
was  a  failure  as  a  surveyor.  I  was  a  failure  as 
a  lawyer,  but  Judge  Douglas  has  neglected  to 
89 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


say  in  his  castigation  of  me  as  a  barkeeper  that 
when  I  was  on  one  side  of  the  bar,  he  was  al- 
ways on  the  other' — this  brought  down  the 
house,  and  Judge  Douglas  laughed  off  the  plat- 
form.' 

"He  told  me  of  his  first  visit  to  New  York, 
of  his  call  on  Henry  Inman — how  he  came 
forward  to  greet  him,  and  how  he  invited  him 
to  sit  down  by  his  side  while  he  worked,  which 
was  then  on  a  portrait  of  Bishop  Hughes — how 
he  questioned  Mr.  Conant,  then  but  a  boy, 
about  what  he  had  been  doing  around  town. 
'I  told  him  I  had  been  up  to  see  Mr.  Coleman's 
exhibit  of  pictures,  when  he  said  'what  did  you 
think  of  them?'  I  being  in  the  first  flush  of 
youth  and  enthusiastic,  I  told  him  I  was  en- 
raptured over  them.  He  said,  'Rot,  they're  all 
forgeries,'  and  from  that  time  on  I  made  up  my 
mind  I  will  make  a  more  thorough  investiga- 
tion, and  go  deeper  into  things  before  comment- 
ing. Mr.  Inman  had  his  studio  on  Broad- 
way, and  was  working  on  a  portrait  of,  or 
had  just  finished  a  portrait  of  Bishop  Onder- 
donk." 


90 


CHAPTER  NINE 

In  1858.  Captain  James  N.  Brown,  a  native 
of  Kentucky,  was  a  candidate  upon  the  Repub- 
lican ticket  for  the  Legislature.  Being  assailed 
for  running  upon  the  same  ticket  with  a  "Black 
Abolitionist,"  he  wrote  to  Lincoln  for  some- 
thing authoritative.  Lincoln  procured  a  small 
memorandum  book  in  which  he  pasted  news- 
paper extracts  of  speeches  he  had  made  during 
the  previous  several  years.  I  have  in  my  poses- 
sion  a  photographic  reproduction  of  this  book 
made  by  my  friend,  J.  McCan  Davis,  whose 
father — still  living — was  my  comrade  in  the 
Civil  War.  This  book — Davis  says — is  the 
only  book  ever  written  by  Lincoln — Reference 
to  extracts  are  in  Lincoln's  own  handwriting. 

Following  are  the  first  pages  of  this  book, 
and  it  will  be  noted  that  his  first  "clippings" 
are  from  his  speech  at  Peoria,  Tuesday,  Octo- 
ber   16th,    1854. 

Can   anything   more  conclusive   be   produced 
to  show   that   the  first  step,    which   resulted   in 
his  reaching  the  Presidency,   was  taken  at  Peo- 
ria, October  1  6th,  1  854?     Here  are  the  extracts: 
91 


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PHOTOGRAPH   COPY   OF    LINCOLN'S   HAND   WRITING   RE- 
FERRING TO  HIS   PEORIA  ADDRESS 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

"The  following  extracts  arc  taken  from  var- 
ious speeches  of  mine  delivered  at  various  times 
and  places  and  I  believe  they  contain  all  I  have 
ever  said  about  'Negro  Equality.'  The  first 
three  are  from  my  answer  to  Judge  Douglas, 
October  16th,  1  854  at  Peoria." 

First  Clipping. 

"This  is  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise. The  foregoing  history  may  not  be 
precisely  accurate  in  every  particular;  but  I  am 
sure  it  is  sufficiently  so,  for  all  the  uses  I  shall 
attempt  to  make  of  it,  and  in  it,  we  have  be- 
fore us,  the  chief  material  enabling  us  to  cor- 
rectly judge  whether  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  is  right  or  wrong. 

"I  think,  and  shall  try  to  show  that  it  is 
wrong;  wrong  in  its  direct  effect,  letting  slavery 
into  Kansas  and  Nebraska — and  wrong  in  its 
prospective  principle,  allowing  it  to  spread  to 
every  other  part  of  the  wide  world,  where  men 
can  be  found  inclined  to  take  it. 

"This  declared  indifference,  but  as  I  must 
think,  covert  real  zeal  for  the  spread  of  slavery, 
I  cannot  but  hate,  I  hate  it  because  of  the 
monstrous  injustice  of  slavery  itself.  I  hate  it 
because  it  deprives  our  republican  example  of 
its  just  influence  in  the  world — enables  the  ene- 
93 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


mies  of  free  institutions,  with  plausibility,  to 
taunt  us  as  hypocrites — causes  the  real  friends 
of  freedom  to  doubt  our  sincerity  and  especial- 
ly because  it  forces  so  many  really  good  men 
amongst  ourselves  into  an  open  war  with  the 
very  fundamental  principles  of  civil  liberty — 
criticising  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
insisting  that  there  is  no  right  principle  of  ac- 
tion but  self-interest. 

"Before  proceeding,  let  me  say  I  think  I  have 
no  prejudice  against  the  Southern  people.  They 
are  just  what  we  would  be  in  their  situation. 
If  slavery  did  not  now  exist  amongst  them, 
they  would  not  introduce  it.  If  it  did  now 
exist  amongst  us,  we  should  not  instantly  give 
it  up.  This  I  believe  of  the  masses  north  and 
south.  Doubtless  there  are  individuals  on  both 
sides,  who  would  not  hold  slaves  under  any  cir- 
cumstances; and  others  who  would  gladly  in- 
troduce slavery  anew,  if  it  were  out  of  existence. 
We  know  that  some  southern  men  do  free  their 
slaves,  go  north,  and  become  tip-top  abolition- 
ists; while  some  northern  ones  go  south,  and 
be — "   (This  clipping  ends  here.) 

2d  Clipping. 

"When  southern  people  tell  us  they  are   no 
more  responsible  for  the  origin  of  slavery,  than 
94 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


we;  I  acknowledge  the  fact.  When  it  is  said 
that  the  institution  exists,  and  that  it  is  very 
difficult  to  get  rid  of  it,  in  any  satisfactory  way, 
I  can  understand  and  appreciate  the  saying.  I 
surely  will  not  blame  them  for  not  doing  what 
I  should  not  know  how  to  do  myself.  If  all 
earthly  power  were  given  me,  I  should  not  know 
what  to  do,  as  to  the  existing  institution.  My 
first  impulse  would  be  to  free  all  the  slaves,  and 
send  them  to  Liberia — to  their  own  native  land. 
But  a  moment's  reflection  would  convince  me, 
that  whatever  of  high  hope,  (as  I  think  there 
is)  there  may  be  in  this,  in  the  long  run,  its 
sudden  execution  is  impossible.  If  they  were 
all  landed  there  in  a  day,  they  would  all  perish 
in  the  next  ten  days:  and  there  are  not  surplus 
shipping  and  surplus  money  enough  in  the 
world  to  carry  them  there  in  many  times  ten 
days.  What  then?  Free  them  all,  and  keep 
them  among  us  as  underlings?  Is  it  quite  cer- 
tain that  this  betters  their  condition?  I  think 
I  would  not  hold  one  in  slavery,  at  any  rate; 
yet  the  point  is  not  clear  enough  to  me  to  de- 
nounce people  upon.  What  next? — Free  them. 
and  make  them  politically  and  socially,  our 
equals?  My  own  feelings  will  not  admit  of 
95 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

this;  and  if  mine  would,  we  would  know  that 
those  of  the  great  mass  of  white  people  will 
not.  Whether  this  feeling  accords  with  justice 
and  sound  judgment,  is  not  the  sole  question, 
if  indeed,  it  is  any  part  of  it.  A  universal  feel- 
ing, whether  well  or  ill-founded,  can  not  be 
safely  disregarded.  We  can  not,  then,  make 
them  equals.  It  does  seem  to  me  that  systems 
of  gradual  emancipation  might  be  adopted;  but 
for  their  tardiness  in  this,  I  will  not  undertake 
to  judge  our  brethern  of  the  south. 

"When  they  remind  us  of  their  constitutional 
rights,  I  acknowledge  them,  not  grudgingly,  but 
fully,  and  fairly;  and  I  would  give  them  any 
legislation  for  the  reclaiming  of  their  fugitives, 
which  should  not,  in  its  stringency,  be  more 
likely  to  carry  a  free  man  into  slavery,  than  our 
ordinary  criminal  laws  are  to  hang  an  innocent 
one. 

"But  all  this;  to  my  judgment,  furnishes  no 
more  excuse  for  permitting  slavery  to  go  into 
our  own  free  territory,  than  it  would  for  re- 
viving the  African  slave  trade  by  law.  The 
law  which  forbids  the  bringing  of  slaves  from 
Africa;  and  that  which  has  so  long  forbid  the 
taking  them  to  Nebraska,  can  hardly  be  dis- 
96 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

tinguished  on  any  moral  principle;  and  the  re- 
peal of  the  former  could  find  quite  as  plausible 
excuses  as  that  of  the  latter. 

"Judge  Douglas,  frequently,  with  bitter  irony 
and  sarcasm,  paraphrases  our  argument  by  say- 
ing "The  white  people  of  Nebraska  are  good 
enough  to  govern  themselves,  but  they  are  not 
good  enough  to  govern  a  few  miserable  ne- 
groes! !" 

"Well  I  doubt  not  that  the  people  of  Nebras- 
ka are,  and  will  continue  to  be  as  good  as  the 
average  of  people  elsewhere.  I  do  not  say  the 
contrary.  What  I  do  say  is,  that  no  man  is  good 
enough  to  govern  another  man  without  that 
other's  consent.  I  say  this  is  the  leading  prin- 
ciple— the  sheet  anchor  of  American  republican- 
ism.    Our  Declaration  of  Independence  says: 

'We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self  evident; 
that  all  men  are  created  equal;  that  they  are  en- 
dowed by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable 
rights;  that  among  these  are  life;  liberty  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness.  That  to  secure  these 
rights,  governments  are  instituted  among  men, 
DEPRIVING  THEIR  JUST  POWERS 
FROM  THE  CONSENT  OF  THE  GOV- 
ERNED." 

97 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


"I  have  quoted  so  much  at  this  time  merely 
to  show  that  according  to  our  ancient  faith,  the 
just  power  of  governments  are  derived  from  the 
consent  of  the  governed.  Now  the  relation  of 
masters  and  slaves  is,  PROTANTO,  a  total 
violation  of  this  principle.  The  master  not 
only  governs  the  slave  without  his  consent;  but 
he  governs  him  by  a  set  of  rules  altogether  dif- 
ferent from  those  which  he  prescribes  for  him- 
self. Allow  all  the  governed  an  equal  voice 
in  the  government,  and  that,  and  that  only  is 
self-government. 

"Let  it  not  be  said  I  am  contending  for  the 
establishment  of  political  and  social  equality  be- 
tween the  whites  and  blacks.  I  have  already 
said  the  contrary.  I  am  not  now  combating 
the  argument  of  necessity,  arising  from  the  fact 
that  the  blacks  are  already  amongst  us;  but  I 
am  combating  what  is  set  up  as  moral  argu- 
ment for  allowing  them  to  be  taken  where  they 
have  never  yet  been — arguing  against  the  exten- 
sion of  a  bad  thing,  which  where  it  already  ex- 
ists we  must  of  necessity,  manage  as  we  best 
can." 

3d  Clipping, 

"In  the  course  of  his  reply,  Senator  Douglas 
remarked,  in  substance,  that  he  had  always  con- 
98 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

sidered  this  government  was  made  for  the  white 
people  and  not  for  the  negroes.  Why,  in  point 
of  mere  fact,  I  think  so  too.  But  in  this  re- 
mark of  the  Judge,  there  is  a  significance,  which 
I  think  is  the  key  to  the  great  mistake  (if  there 
is  any  such  mistake)  which  he  has  made  in  this 
Nebraska  measure.  It  shows  that  the  Judge 
has  no  very  vivid  impression  that  the  negro  is 
a  human;  and  consequently  has  no  idea  that 
there  can  be  any  moral  question  in  legislating 
about  him.  In  his  view,  the  question  of  whether 
a  new  country  shall  be  slave  or  free,  is  a  mat- 
ter of  as  utter  indifference,  as  it  is  whether  his 
neighbor  shall  plant  his  farm  with  tobacco,  or 
stock  it  with  horned  cattle.  Now,  whether  this 
view  is  right  or  wrong,  it  is  very  certain  that 
the  great  mass  of  mankind  take  a  totally  dif- 
ferent view.  They  consider  slavery  a  great 
moral  wrong;  and  their  feelings  against  it  is 
not  evanescent,  but  eternal.  It  lies  at  the  very 
foundation  of  their  sens*  of  justice;  and  it  can- 
not be  trifled  with — It  is  a  great  and  durable 
element  of  popular  action,  and,  I  think,  no 
statesman  can  safely  disregard  it." 


99 


PHOTOGRAPH  COPY  OF  LETTER  WRITTEN  BY  ABRAHAM 

LINCOLN  TO  HON.  J.  N.  BROWN  REFERRING  TO 

HIS    ADDRESS    IN    PEORIA,    ILL.,    ON 

OCTOBER    16,    1854 

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CHAPTER  TEN 

It  occurs  to  me,  as  it  probably  has  to  the 
reader,  that  these  sketches  are  a  little  "jerky." 

They  are  like  Billy  Stoughton's  typewriter. 
Billy  was  a  clerk  in  the  office  of  Captain  L.  L. 
Troy,  Superintendent  Railway  Mail  Service  at 
Chicago.  He  was  an  expert  typewriter,  who 
could  talk  and  follow  copy  at  the  same  time. 
He  also  stammered  badly.  His  machine  was 
of  the  old  fashioned  kind,  and  the  writing  was 
invisible.  I  was  talking  to  him  one  day  when 
he  stopped  and  threw  open  the  carriage  to  ex- 
amine the  writing.  The  keys  had  caught  and 
he  found  nothing  but  a  lot  of  meaningless 
characters.  His  face  clouded  with  a  look  of 
blank  astonishment — then  he  broke  into  a  sun- 
ny smile — looking  up  at  me  he  said:  "Bry-Bry- 
ner — bes-best  typewriter  in  America — writes  ex- 
ex-exactly  like  I-I  I  talk." 

I  may  go  "far  afield"  to  give  a  personal 
touch  to  these  pages,  but  the  fragrance  of  mem- 
ory's flowered  fields  give  them  a  charm  to  me  of 
which  I  hope  the  reader  may  catch  a  faint 
breath. 

Colonel  Clark  E.  Carr  of  Galesburg  was  our 
Minister  to  Denmark.     I  knew  him  well  during 
108 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

the  last  years  of  his  life,  and  he  told  me  many- 
things  about  Lincoln.  He  was  with  him  upon 
the  train  which  took  Mr.  Lincoln  to  Gettys- 
burg, and  he  said  that  Lincoln  whilst  enroute 
made  pencil  notes  upon  the  back  of  an  envelope. 
It  was  this  probably  that  gave  rise  to  the  story 
that  his  address  was  without  previous  prepara- 
tion. It  is  far  more  likely  that  he  only  jotted 
down  the  headings  of  his  speech  to  aid  his 
memory  of  a  carefully  prepared  address.  As 
I  have  before  said,  at  the  Peoria  meeting  the 
platform  was  erected  upon  the  south  side  of  the 
old  Court  House  and  entrance  thereto  was 
through  a  window  of  the  office  of  the  Circuit 
Clerk.  I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  Judge 
Douglas'  appearance  as  he  stepped  upon  the 
platform.  Colonel  Carr  has  thus  described  him 
which  coincides  perfectly  with  the  picture  I 
have  in  mind.  "He  was  dressed  in  a  black  broad 
cloth  suit  of  latest  Washington  cut;  with  im- 
maculate linen — his  trim  figure,  though  small, 
seemed  perfect,  as  his  lustrous  eyes  looked  out 
from  under  his  massive  forehead,  surrounded 
by  heavy  brown  locks.  Bold,  defiant,  confi- 
dent, he  seemed  the  impersonation  of  strength 
and  power." 

109 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


I  doubt  if  anyone  man  aside  from  Lincoln 
contributed  so  much  to  the  salvation  of  the 
Union  as  Judge  Douglas.  He  virtually  broke 
with  his  party  and  carried  thousands  of  his 
followers  with  him.  At  the  inauguration  of 
Lincoln,  he  sat  upon  the  platform  and  held  Mr. 
Lincoln's  hat,  thus  making  public  demonstra- 
tion of  his  support  to  the  incoming  adminis- 
tration. Exactly  three  months  later  he  passed 
away  in  the  city  of  Chicago,  an  irreparable  loss 
to  the  Union  cause.  Edward  Bonham  was 
Lieutenant  Colonel  of  the  regiment  in  which 
I  served  in  the  Civil  War.  I  was  acquainted 
with  his  father,  Jeriah  Bonham,  who  wrote 
"Fifty  Years  Recollections."  From  this  vol- 
ume, I  make  the  following  extract,  as  of  inter- 
est in  connection  with  Lincoln  and  Peoria: 

"There  is  not  much  in  the  early  life  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  to  stir  the  imagination  of  the  read- 
er. There  is  nothing  to  rouse  up  wonderful 
enthusiasm  in  the  humble  process  of  his  edu- 
cation; his  experiences  of  hardships;  his  early 
struggles  with  the  rough  forces  of  nature 
among  which  he  was  born.  Indeed,  we  would 
be  trespassing  on  the  domain  of  history  writ- 
ten by  others  if  we  attempted  to  give  a  brief 
110 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

history  of  his  early  life,  which  has  been  so  well 
and  ably  written  by  others,  among  them  the 
campaign  biographies  of  Scripps,  Raymond  and 
Barrett,  the  writings  of  Ward  H.  Lamon,  Esq., 
and  Hon.  Isaac  N.  Arnold;  also,  "Life  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,"  by  J.  G.  Holland;  Carpenter's 
"Reminiscences,"  and  later,  the  "Life  and  Pub- 
lic Services  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  by  J.  Carroll 
Power.  To  the  excellence  of  all  these  we  bear 
cheerful  testimony. 

"Our  "Recollections"  of  Mr.  Lincoln  must 
be  confined  in  the  main,  to  our  personal  ac- 
quaintance with  him,  which  commenced  at  the 
mass  Whig  State  Convention,  held  at  Peoria, 
in  June,  1844.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  among  the 
"big  guns"  in  the  grand  array  of  eminent  states- 
men and  eloquent  speakers  present  on  that  oc- 
casion; a  galaxy  of  bright  particular  stars  in 
the  constellation  of  talent  and  patriotism,  num- 
bering among  them  Gen.  John  J.  Hardin,  who 
afterwards  fell  at  Buena  Vista,  Colonel  Edward 
D.  Baker,  who  gave  up  his  life  at  Ball's  Bluff 
during  the  Rebellion,  John  T.  Stuart,  Stephen 
T.  Logan,  Jesse  K.  Dubois,  U.  F.  Linder,  O.  H. 
Browning,  Joseph  Gillespie,  Archie  Williams, 
Jackson  Grimshaw,  T.  Lisle  Smith,  Martin  P. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


Sweet,  Ben.  Bond,  Richard  Yates,  T.  Lyle  Dick- 
ey, Lincoln  B.  Knowlton,  D.  W.  Woodson, 
Wm.  H.  Henderson,  and  a  host  of  others  who 
came  up  to  this  grand  council  in  the  interests  of 
Clay  and  Frelinghuysen,  the  Whig  standard 
bearers  in  that  memorable  campaign.  In  addition 
to  these  there  were  present  Caleb  B.  Smith, 
Henry  S.  Lane,  and  several  other  Indiana  ora- 
tors, then  and  since  known  to  fame,  and  from 
Missouri,  there  were  the  renowned  and  eloquent 
Dr.  E.  C.  McDowell,  Don  Morrison,  and  many 
others. 

"Among  all  this  brilliant  array  called  to  ad- 
dress the  convention  during  the  two  days'  ses- 
sions, none  attracted  greater  and  more  marked 
attention  than  Mr.  Lincoln.  Dr.  McDowell, 
Caleb  B.  Smith,  Edward  D.  Baker  and  Gen. 
Hardin  made  their  speeches  before  him.  All 
made  grand  speeches  and  were  loudly  applauded. 
Gen.  Hardin  was  then  the  member  of  Congress 
from  this  district,  and  Col.  Baker  the  candidate 
for  the  succession. 

"It  is  among  the  brightest  recollections  of  that 

day  when  Mr.  Lincoln  took  the  stand.     He  did 

not,  on  rising,  show  his  full  height,  stood  rather 

in  a  stooping  posture,  his  long-tailed  coat  hang- 

112 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

ing  loosely  round  his  body,  descending  round 
and  over  an  ill-fitting  pair  of  pantaloons  that 
covered  his  not  very  symmetrical  legs.  He  com- 
menced his  speech  in  a  rather  diffident  manner, 
even  seemed  for  a  while  at  a  loss  for  words,  his 
voice  was  irregular,  a  little  tremulous,  as  at  first 
he  began  his  argument  by  laying  down  his  pro- 
positions. As  he  proceeded  he  seemed  to  gain 
more  confidence,  his  body  straightened  up,  his 
countenance  brightened,  his  language  became 
free  and  animated,  as,  during  this  time  he  had 
illustrated  his  argument  by  two  or  three  well- 
told  stories,  that  drew  the  attention  of  the 
thousands  of  his  audience  to  every  word  he  ut- 
tered. Then  he  became  eloquent,  carrying  the 
swaying  crowd  at  his  will,  who,  at  every  point 
he  made  in  his  forcible  argument,  were  tumultu- 
ous in  their  applause.  His  subject  was  the  ex- 
position of  the  protective  system — the  tariff, — 
the  method  of  raising  a  revenue  by  a  system 
of  duties  levied  on  foreign  importations,  which 
at  the  same  time  would  afford  protection  to 
American  industries.  Mr.  Lincoln  spoke  a  lit- 
tle over  an  hour.  His  arguments  were  un- 
answerable. This  speech  raised  him  to  the 
proudest  height  to  which  he  had  ever  before 
113 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


attained.  He  had  greatly  strengthened  the  Whig 
organization  in  the  state  and  established  his 
reputation  as  one  of  the  most  powerful  political 
debaters  in  the  country. 

"This  speech  showed  to  the  people  that  he 
had  thoroughly  mastered  all  the  great  questions 
of  the  day,  and  brought  to  their  discussion  close- 
ness and  soundness  of  logic,  with  numerous 
facts,  clinched  by  the  most  elaborate  and  pow- 
erful arguments.  This  conclusion,  it  is  among 
my  recollections,  we  arrived  at  after  enjoying 
this  grand  field  day,  hearing  the  most  gifted  of 
Illinois  statesmen  discuss  all  the  great  questions 
of  the  day,  and  we  left  with  the  thousand  of 
others,  for  their  homes,  with  the  firm  belief 
and  conviction  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  the 
foremost  statesman  in  Illinois,  and  would,  at 
that  time,  have  been  willing  to  vote  for  him 
for  any  position  from  Congressman  to  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  both  of  which  priv- 
ileges were  enjoyed  in  after  years." 


114 


CHAPTER  ELEVEN 

From  early  childhood,  when  in  the  old 
Court  House  in  Peoria,  I  used  to  sit  upon  his 
knee  and  he  bought  me  big  red  apples  from  old 
man  Cutler.  Colonel  Robert  G.  Ingersoll, 
America's  foremost  orator,  was  throughout  life 
my  friend.  I  recall  standing  over  the  furnace 
register,  shaking  the  black  ostrich  plume  to  put 
it  in  curl,  which  he  wore  upon  his  hat  when 
he  marched  away  as  Colonel  of  the  11th  Illi- 
nois Cavalry.  As  this  is  a  Peoria  story  of  Lin- 
coln, I  shall  here  insert  his  splendid  tribute  to 
the  martyred  President. 

"ABRAHAM  LINCOLN— strange  ming- 
ling of  mirth  and  tears,  of  the  tragic  and  gro- 
tesque, of  cap  and  crown,  of  Socrates  and  Dem- 
ocritus,  of  Aesop  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  of  all 
that  is  gentle  and  just,  humorous  and  honest, 
merciful,  wise,  laughable,  lovable  and  divine, 
and  all  consecrated  to  the  use  of  man;  while 
through  all,  and  over  all,  were  an  overwhelm- 
ing sense  of  obligation,  of  chivalric  loyalty  to 
truth,  and  upon  all,  the  shadow  of  the  tragic 
end. 

"Nearly   all   the  great  historic  characters   are 
impossible    monsters,    disproportioned    by    flat- 
115 


COLONEL  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL  OE  PEORIA 

As  he  appeared  in   1861    when  he  departed  from  Peoria  as 

Colonel  of  the   11th   Illinois  Cavalry. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN    PEORIA    1854 

tery,  or  by  calumny  deformed.  We  know  noth- 
ing of  their  peculiarities,  or  nothing  but  their 
peculiarities.  About  these  oaks  there  clings 
none  of  the  earth  of  humanity. 

"Washington  is  now  only  a  steel  engraving. 
About  the  real  man  who  lived  and  loved  and 
hated  and  schemed,  we  know  but  little.  The 
glass  through  which  we  look  at  him  is  of  such 
high  magnifying  power  that  the  features  are 
exceedingly  indistinct. 

"Hundreds  of  people  are  now  engaged  in 
smoothing  out  the  lines  of  Lincoln's  face — 
forcing  all  features  to  the  common  mould — so 
that  he  may  be  known,  not  as  he  really  was, 
but,  according  to  their  poor  standard,  as  he 
should  have  been. 

"Lincoln  was  not  a  type.  He  stands  alone — 
no  ancestors,  no  fellows,  and  no  successors. 

"He  had  the  advantage  of  living  in  a  new 
country,  of  social  equality,  of  personal  freedom, 
of  seeing  in  the  horizon  of  his  future  the  per- 
petual star  of  hope.  He  preserved  his  individ- 
ualiy  and  his  self-respect.  He  knew  and 
mingled  with  men  of  every  kind;  and,  after 
all,  men  are  the  best  books.  He  became  ac- 
117 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


quainted  with  the  ambitions  and  hopes  of  the 
heart,  the  means  used  to  accomplish  ends,  the 
springs  of  action  and  the  seeds  of  thought.  He 
was  familiar  with  nature,  with  actual  things, 
with  common  facts.  He  loved  and  appreciated 
the  poem  of  the  year,  the  drama  of  the  seasons. 

"In  a  new  country  a  man  must  possess  at 
least  three  virtues — honesty,  courage  and  gener- 
osity. In  cultivated  society,  cultivation  is  often 
more  important  than  soil.  A  well  executed 
counterfeit  passes  more  readily  than  a  blurred 
genuine.  It  is  necessary  only  to  observe  the 
unwritten  laws  of  society — to  be  honest  enough 
to  keep  out  of  prison,  and  generous  enough  to 
subscribe  in  public — where  the  subscription  can 
be  defended  as  an  investment. 

"In  a  new  country,  character  is  essential;  in 
the  old,  reputation  is  sufficient.  In  the  new, 
they  find  what  a  man  really  is;  in  the  old,  he 
generally  passes  for  what  he  resembles.  Peo- 
ple separated  only  by  distance  are  much  nearer 
together,  than  those  divided  by  the  walls  of 
caste. 

"It  is  no  advantage   to  live  in  a  great  city, 
where     poverty     degrades     and     failure     brings 
despair.      The    fields    are    lovelier    than    paved 
118 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

streets,  and  the  great  forests  than  walls  of  brick. 
Oaks  and  elms  are  more  poetic  than  steeples 
and  chimneys. 

"In  the  country  is  the  idea  of  home.  There 
you  see  the  rising  and  setting  sun;  you  become 
acquainted  with  the  stars  and  clouds.  The 
constellations  are  your  friends.  You  hear  the 
rain  on  the  roof  and  listen  to  the  rhythmic 
sighing  of  the  winds.  You  are  thrilled  by  the 
resurrection  called  Spring,  touched  and  sadden- 
ed by  Autumn — the  grace  and  poetry  of  death. 
Every  field  is  a  picture,  a  landscape;  every  land- 
scape a  poem ;  every  flower  a  tender  thought, 
and  every  forest  a  fairy-land.  In  the  country 
you  preserve  your  identity — your  personality. 
There  you  are  an  aggregation  of  atoms,  but  in 
the  city  you  are  only  an  atom  of  an  aggregation. 

"In  the  country  you  keep  your  cheek  close  to 
the  breast  of  Nature.  You  are  calmed  and  en- 
nobled by  the  space,  the  amplitude  and  scope  of 
earth  and  sky — by  the  constancy  of  the  stars. 

"Lincoln  never  finished  his  education.  To  the 
night  of  his  death  he  was  a  pupil,  a  learner,  an 
inquirer,  a  seeker  after  knowledge.  You  have 
no  idea  how  many  men  arc  spoiled  by  what  is 
called  education.  For  the  most  part,  colleges 
119 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 

are  places  where  pebbles  are  polished  and  dia- 
monds are  dimmed.  If  Shakespeare  had  grad- 
uated at  Oxford,  he  might  have  been  a  quibbling 
attorney,  or  a  hypocritical  parson. 

"Lincoln  was  a  great  lawyer.  There  is  noth- 
ing shrewder  in  this  world  than  intelligent  hon- 
esty.    Perfect  candor  is  sword  and  shield. 

"He  understood  the  nature  of  man.  As  a 
lawyer  he  endeavored  to  get  at  the  truth,  at  the 
very  heart  of  a  case.  He  was  not  willing  even 
to  deceive  himself.  No  matter  what  his  inter- 
est said,  what  his  passion  demanded,  he  was 
great  enough  to  find  the  truth  and  strong 
enough  to  pronounce  judgment  against  his  own 
desires. 

"Lincoln  was  a  many-sided  man,  acquainted 
with  smiles  and  tears,  complex  in  brain,  single 
in  heart,  direct  as  light;  and  his  words,  candid 
as  mirrors,  gave  the  perfect  image  of  his 
thought.  He  was  never  afraid  to  ask — never 
too  dignified  to  admit  that  he  did  not  know. 
No  man  had  keener  wit,  or  kinder  humor. 

"It  may  be  that  humor  is  the  pilot  of  reason, 
People  without  humor  drift  unconsciously  into 
absurdity.     Humor  sees  the  other  side — stands 
120 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

in  the  mind  like  a  spectator,  a  good-natured 
critic,  and  gives  its  opinion  before  judgment 
is  reached.  Humor  goes  with  good  nature,  and 
good  nature  is  the  climate  of  reason.  In  anger, 
reason  abdicates  and  malice  extinguishes  the 
torch.  Such  was  the  humor  of  Lincoln  that  he 
could  tell  even  unpleasant  truths  as  charming- 
ly as  most  men  can  tell  the  things  we  wish  to 
hear. 

"He  was  not  solemn.  Solemnity  is  a  mask 
worn  by  ignorance  and  hypocrisy — it  is  the 
preface,  prologue,  and  index  to  the  cunning  or 
the  stupid. 

"He  was  natural   in  his  life  and   thought 

master  of  the  story-teller's  art,  in  illustration 
apt,  in  application  perfect,  liberal  in  speech, 
shocking  Pharisees  and  prudes,  using  any  word 
that  wit  could  disinfect. 

"He  was  a  logician.  His  logic  shed  light.  In 
its  presence  the  obscure  became  luminous,  and 
the  most  complex  and  intricate  political  and 
metaphysical  knots  seemed  to  untie  themselves. 
Logic  is  the  necessary  product  of  intelligence 
and  sincerity.  It  cannot  be  learned.  It  is  the 
child  of  a  clear  head  and  a  good  heart. 
121 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


"Lincoln  was  candid,  and  with  candor  often 
deceived  the  deceitful.  He  had  intellect  with- 
out arrogance,  genius  without  pride,  and  reli- 
gion without  cant — that  is  to  say,  without 
bigotry  and  without  deceit. 

"He  was  an  orator — clear,  sincere,  natural. 
He  did  not  pretend.  He  did  not  say  what  he 
thought  others  thought,  but  what  he  thought. 

"If  you  wish  to  be  sublime  you  must  be  nat- 
ural— you  must  keep  close  to  the  grass.  You 
must  sit  by  the  fireside  of  the  heart;  above  the 
clouds  it  is  too  cold.  You  must  be  simple  in 
your  speech;  too  much  polish  suggests  insincer- 
ity. 

"The  great  orator  idealizes  the  real,  trans- 
figures the  common,  makes  even  the  inanimate 
throb  and  thrill,  fills  the  gallery  of  the  imagi- 
nation with  statues  and  pictures  perfect  in  form 
and  color,  brings  to  light  the  gold  hoarded  by 
memory  the  miser,  shows  the  glittering  coin 
to  the  spendthrift  hope,  enriches  the  brain,  en- 
nobles the  heart,  and  quickens  the  conscience. 
Between  his  lips  words  bud  and  blossom. 

"If  you  wish  to  know  the  difference  between 
an   orator   and   an   elocutionist — between   what 
122 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 

is  felt  and  what  is  said — between  what  the  heart 
and  brain  can  do  together  and  what  the  brain 
can  do  alone — read  Lincoln's  wondrous  speech 
at  Gettysburg,  and  then  the  oration  of  Edward 
Everett. 

"The  speech  of  Lincoln  will  never  be  forgot- 
ten. It  will  live  until  languages  are  dead  and 
lips  are  dust.  The  oration  of  Everett  will 
never  be  read. 

"The  elocutionists  believe  in  the  virtue  of 
voice,  the  sublimity  of  syntax,  the  majesty  of 
long  sentences,  and  the  genius  of  gesture. 

"The  orator  loves  the  real,  the  simple,  the 
natural.  He  places  the  thought  above  all.  He 
knows  that  the  greatest  ideas  should  be  ex- 
pressed in  the  shortest  words — that  the  greatest 
statues  need  the  least  drapery. 

"Lincoln  was  an  immense  personality — firm 
but  not  obstinate.  Obstinacy  is  egotism — 
firmness,  heroism.  He  influenced  others  with- 
out effort,  unconsciously;  and  they  submitted 
to  him  as  men  submit  to  nature — unconscious- 
ly. He  was  severe  with  himself,  and  for  that 
reason  lenient  with  others. 
123 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


"He  appeared  to  apologize  for  being  kinder 
than  his  fellows. 

"He  did  merciful  things  as  stealthily  as  others 
committed  crimes. 

"Almost  ashamed  of  tenderness,  he  said  and 
did  the  noblest  words  and  deeds  with  the*charm- 
ing  confusion,  that  awkardness,  that  is  the  per- 
fect grace  of  modesty. 

"As  a  noble  man,  wishing  to  pay  a  small 
debt  to  a  poor  neighbor,  reluctantly  offers  a 
hundred-dollar  bill  and  asks  for  change,  fearing 
that  he  may  be  suspected  either  of  making  a 
display  of  wealth  or  a  pretense  of  payment,  so 
Lincoln  hestitated  to  show  his  wealth  of  good- 
ness, even  to  the  best  he  knew. 

"A  great  man  stooping,  not  wishing  to  make 
his  fellows  feel  that  they  were  small  or  mean. 

"By  his  candor,  by  his  kindness,  by  his  per- 
fect freedom  from  restraint,  by  saying  what  he 
thought,  and  saying  it  absolutely  in  his  own 
way,  he  made  it  not  only  possible,  but  popular, 
to  be  natural.  He  was  the  enemy  of  mock 
solemnity,  of  the  stupidly  respectable,  of  the 
cold  and  formal. 

124 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    IN   PEORIA    1854 


"He  wore  no  official  robes  either  on  his  body 
or  his  soul.  He  never  pretended  to  be  more  or 
less,  or  other,  or  different,  from  what  he  really 
was. 

"He  had  the  unconscious  naturalness  of  Na- 
ture's self. 

"He  built  upon  the  rock.  The  foundation 
was  secure  and  broad.  The  structure  was  a 
pyramid,  narrowing  as  it  rose.  Through  days 
and  nights  of  sorrow,  through  years  of  grief 
and  pain,  with  unswerving  purpose,  'with 
malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  all,'  with 
infinite  patience,  with  unclouded  vision,  he 
hoped  and  toiled.  Stone  after  stone  was  laid 
until  at  last  the  Proclamation  found  its  place. 
On  that  the  Goddess  stands. 

"He  knew  others,  because  perfectly  acquainted 
with  himself.  He  cared  nothing  for  place,  but 
everything  for  principle;  a  little  for  money,  but 
everything  for  independence.  Where  no  prin- 
ciple was  involved,  easily  swayed — willing  to 
go  slowly,  if  in  the  right  direction — sometimes 
willing  to  stop;  but  he  would  not  go  back,  and 
he  would  not  go  wrong. 

"He  was  willing  to  wait.  He  knew  that  the 
event  was  not  waiting,  and  that  fate  was  not  the 
125 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


fool  of  chance.  He  knew  that  slavery  had  de- 
fenders, but  no  defense,  and  that  they  who  at- 
tack the  right  must  wound  themselves. 

"He  was  neither  tyrant  nor  slave.  He  neither 
knelt  nor  scorned. 

"With  him,  men  were  neither  great  nor  small 
— they  were  right  or  wrong. 

"Through  manners,  clothes,  titles,  rags  and 
race  he  saw  the  real — that  which  is.  Beyond 
accident,  policy,  compromise  and  war  he  saw 
the  end. 

"He  was  patient  as  Destiny;  whose  undeciph- 
erable hieroglyphs  were  so  deeply  graven  on  his 
sad  and  tragic  face. 

"Nothing  discloses  real  character  like  the  use 
of  power.  It  is  easy  for  the  weak  to  be  gentle. 
Most  people  can  bear  adversity.  But  if  you 
wish  to  know  what  a  man  really  is,  give  him 
power.  This  is  the  supreme  test.  It  is  the  glory 
of  Lincoln  that,  having  almost  absolute  power, 
he  never  abused  it,  except  on  the  side  of  mercy. 

"Wealth  could  not  purchase,  power  could  not 
awe,  this  divine,  this  loving  man. 

"He  knew  no  fear  except  the  fear  of  doing 
wrong.  Hating  slavery,  pitying  the  master — 
126 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   IN   PEORIA    1854 


seeking  to  conquer,  not  persons,  but  prejudices 
— he  was  the  embodiment  of  the  self-denial,  the 
courage,  the  hope  and  the  nobility  of  a  Nation. 

"He  spoke  not  to  inflame,  not  to  upbraid, 
but  to  convince. 

"He  raised  his  hands,  not  to  strike,  but  in 
benediction. 

"He  longed  to  pardon. 

"He  loved  to  see  the  pearls  of  joy  on  the 
cheeks  of  a  wife  whose  husband  he  had  rescued 
from  death. 

"Lincoln  was  the  grandest  figure  of  the  fiercest 
civil  war.  He  is  the  gentlest  memory  of  our 
world." 


127 


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